


Dance Out of Time

by everythingmurky



Series: Time demi-Lord [8]
Category: Broadchurch, Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Case Fic, Crossover, F/M, Flashbacks, Minor Original Character(s), Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-24 22:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Following their run in with the Family of Blood and Joe's plea hearing, Hardy and Miller return home just for the past to come back to haunt him, as a man wants him to find a killer, one that would gladly hurt Hardy again.





	1. Time for the Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to do this, at least not right away, but things got all turned around and screwed up today. I can't explain all of that, but in all the chaos of dying computers and work evils and sick cats, I found my sonic screwdriver (okay, it's a toy replica, but still) and that deserved fic.
> 
> Plus I couldn't remember bits of the episode for the other story, and I couldn't watch and was freaking out again, as usual, so I tried for something I thought would be easier. I'm an idiot.

* * *

“Guilty.”

Ellie let out a breath in relief, forcing a smile as she looked over at Beth and Mark. He had his arms around both her and Chloe, holding on tight, and little Lizzie in Beth's lap had no idea what was going on, but the moment was worth it for all of them.

She was relieved. She was. Joe was going away for a long time, paying not only for what he'd done to Danny Latimer but also to another child, and he could never harm anyone again. She didn't have to worry about him trying to see or get custody of the boys. He was never going near them.

She felt strange, a bit numb. She should be glad, shouldn't she?

Why did she feel like she couldn't move, couldn't breathe?

Someone touched her hand, and she met Daisy's worried eyes before Hardy put a hand on her back. She let out a breath in a shudder, the tension going out of her body and making her weak. He let her lean against him as she tried to pull herself together.

This should have been easier. She was dealing with Hardy having a time traveling alien for a father and all that came with it, so why was it so hard to accept that Joe had actually admitted he was guilty this time?

Maybe because, in spite of the overwhelming evidence and legal loopholes, she hadn't believed he'd actually do it. She reached up to brush a tear off her face. God, this should be it, all over, the whole nightmare.

It felt like it wasn't. She didn't like feeling that way, not for a damned minute.

She barely heard the judge talking about the sentencing, all of that just noise in her ears, though she thought she could hear someone else crying in the room. She didn't know if that was Beth or maybe the mother of Keith Humphries, the boy Joe had killed long before he ever saw Danny Latimer.

She watched as they led Joe away. He gave her that pleading look, and she glared at him, again tempted to kick the shit out of him. She hated him so much. He'd made everything she knew a lie, and he'd almost broken her in the process. She'd almost lost Tom, half the town hated her and thought she knew, that she was a part of it, and then that nightmare of a trial just made it all worse.

She would have gone mad if she hadn't had Sandbrook to solve. She'd hated Hardy for involving her in that mess, but after it was over, she knew that was just what she needed. A distraction, a purpose, whatever she wanted to call it, she'd had it thanks to Hardy, and it got her through everything.

He nudged her, and she looked up at him, wiping her cheek again.

“You need more time?”

She forced herself to shake her head. She wasn't going to sit around here, not when it was over and she could finally be free of what Joe had done. She needed to take back her life, and she couldn't do it wallowing in a courtroom, especially not when Joe had done what she'd been convinced he wouldn't and said guilty.

She forced herself up, taking hold of the seat in front of her to steady herself for a minute, not sure why this was affecting her so much. She'd done better when Joe had said not guilty, and this all felt so weird. And wrong.

She would have to tell Tom that his father was going to be away for a long time, though she thought she'd wait until they were back home. She wasn't going to call and have Olly answer. She knew it would make the papers and everything soon enough, but right now, it didn't have to be plastered everywhere. She'd like a bit of privacy for a bit before a new round of outrage happened, since people would be angry that Joe had gotten away with Keith's death for long enough to kill Danny.

She winced. Maybe it wasn't as over as she'd thought. Keith's death was mostly an accident, and it was only because Joe covered it up that they had much of a case for anything, and he could get out. Oh, god, that couldn't happen.

“Miller,” Hardy said from behind her. “Breathe.”

She sighed. “What if it's not long enough?”

“Torchwood,” Hardy told her, taking hold of her arm, and she nodded as he led her out of the room. She needed to find Beth and talk to her about all of this, not that they'd want her interrupting them right now. This, though, it was the justice they'd been denied before, and they deserved it.

“Wait,” Daisy said as they stepped into the lobby. “I feel kind of strange. It's almost like...”

Ellie looked over at her, worried, but she shouldn't have bothered as a second later, Daisy was running over to the Doctor, wrapping her arms around him and calling him Gramps to the confusion of everyone in the room except a small handful.

“What the hell?”

“Oh, you know,” Donna said, appearing almost from nowhere near him. “Someone had to remind that git, but us girls, we knew. You needed us today.”

Ellie stared at her, unable to come up with a word before the other woman hugged her tight, her mind trying to accept what she'd just heard.

* * *

“I don't think I want to know where she is,” Alec said, and Rose gave him a bit of a smile. Jenny was an adjustment, that was for sure. She was a lot like her father in that she seemed in many ways a child in an adult's body, running around and doing dangerous things like she didn't even understand there was such a thing as risk.

“She'll be here. She just had to see more of the Plass first. She wanted to climb to the top of the monument, and I've given up trying to argue with her,” Rose told him. She bit her lip, not sure she wanted to bring this up or that she should, given how difficult her relationship was with her... son. Sometimes it was hard to accept that was what he was, since she'd missed all those years with him. She might have been old in spirit with Bad Wolf and time running through her, but she was still too young to have a son or a granddaughter.

“Does she call you Mother?”

Rose shook her head. “You would throw that in my face, wouldn't you?”

He grunted. “You shouldn't have come. This isn't any kind of crisis. Might have been, had he chosen a different plea, but this is how it should be. I can't sense any alterations to the timelines around here to think that he wouldn't have done it.”

Rose drew in a breath and let it out. “Alec, I _know._ I remember. I'm not the one that you just left behind that was due to lose those memories of what it was like in Scotland. I'm the one who died and came back and knows all of it.”

“That still doesn't mean you need to be here. Joe Miller is in prison. He's no longer a threat. Nothing here is, not unless you count Torchwood.”

“You still don't trust Jack, do you?”

Alec shook his head. “Human nature is what it is. There is truth to that saying about power corrupting. Torchwood has already proved that once. It wouldn't take much for Jack's team to do it again.”

“They're good people,” Rose said. “And I'm glad you were able to intervene and save them. All of them. What Jack's brother intended to do would have been catastrophic, and two of them would have lost their lives that night, along with many others in the city.”

“I got bit. A whole ship full of people died. Don't expect me to cheer and think that was worth it.”

“I didn't say it was,” she told him. She put a hand on his arm, looking at him and trying to find the right words to reach him. “Jack's brother was deluded. Warped beyond reason. You've seen tragedies change people. He was one of them.”

“It still doesn't explain why you're here. If you know something from my future and are here to let it play out in another sick game like the rest of my damned life, you can go. Take him, Donna, and Jenny and get the hell away from me.”

Rose shook her head. “Your timeline is more in flux than anyone I've ever known, and it will only get worse as time passes, but that's not why I wanted to see you. I realize I'm not a mother to you, and I don't know how to be, but I _do_ know how Scotland changed you—”

“What do you mean, my timeline is in flux? Are you saying that there's still a chance none of this happens?”

She shook her head. “As much as I shouldn't tell you and you'll hate it, you are not done traveling in time. Every time you do, the timelines around you get more complicated. What I saw as Bad Wolf no longer applies in some ways, and even the Doctor can't see your timeline. It's not linear. It's not set. The only fixed points we know of are in your past.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Why would I go anywhere in time now? I don't have to fix more of his future. I'm done with that. It's fixed enough to where he won't be the person you and the TARDIS feared. It's fine.”

“Would it be any better if I told you that you come to know all of your father's regenerations?”

“Not particularly, no.”

* * *

“Didn't I say it?” Mark Latimer asked, stepping out of the TARDIS into his backyard. “I said it would be a lot faster if we had that ship for the trip back and forth. And it was.”

“Yes, Mark, you did,” Beth said, sounding a bit tired. “And since we're back early, we'll have to have quiet night in. At least, I am. I'm done in, and I need a bit after today. I swear, I thought he'd do it to us again, put us through another trial.”

“I can hardly believe it myself,” Miller agreed, shaking her head. “It still doesn't seem real.”

“It is, though,” Chloe said, shifting her sister in her arms. “It's done. He's guilty. He won't get away with what he's done. He's going to stay in prison this time. For good.”

Hardy gave them another glance, not sure if Daisy would want to stay with Chloe or if they would want to be alone after the plea. He didn't feel like waiting around to find out. Rose's words were on his mind, as well as what happened with the Family of Blood, and he didn't want to think about how having his father and Rose around could undo the drug Harkness had given him. Hardy did not want his daughter or Miller remembering that time in Scotland.

He set off across the field, having already made his decision about his next step. He knew, even if he did nothing else, he had to get himself and his possessions out of Miller's house. He was not staying there for another night. He'd let it pass before, a few times, since he'd either been injured or distracted enough to where he hadn't cared what was done, but he knew he couldn't stay now, not after that week in the past when he'd been human.

“Oi,” Miller called, running up to him. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

Of course she'd found him. She just had to follow him, didn't she?

“Getting my stuff.”

“What?”

“I'll have it all out of your house by the end of the night,” he told her, not looking over at her. He couldn't. She'd have that expression on her face that would make him want to take it all back, and he knew that he couldn't. He wouldn't.

“You don't actually intend to leave with him, do you?” Miller asked, trying to keep pace with him. “Why? Broadchurch is your home now.”

He snorted. “Since when was that ever true? Just go. You be with your family or the Latimers. Leave me to deal with mine how I please.”

“No, because you're a git who doesn't know how to interact with people, period,” Miller insisted. “I'm not leaving you on your own. Something's wrong here, and I'm not letting you just run off like that. Hiding in the TARDIS is not an answer, even if you might not be found again.”

“I never said I was going to do any such thing,” he almost snapped, tempted to forget everything he had in the house and go without it, since he didn't need much. He would miss his scarf, though, the heirloom one he shared with Daisy and his father's fourth form.

“Then what do you think you are doing?” she asked, finally reaching him and grabbing his arm. “You can't just—who the bloody hell is that in my yard?”

He looked over at the man standing next to the house. Too well dressed for the average burglar, in a suit that was on the cheaper side, he was as nervous as one, sweating and shifting a briefcase from one hand to another as he swallowed. Hardy frowned. He almost looked like he wanted to be a lawyer, but if he was, he was worse than an ambulance chaser.

“Can we help you?”

“Actually,” the man said, trying to force a smile. “I think you can, DI Hardy.”

“I'm not—”

“I'm looking for the man who killed my daughter. I think you can help me find him. No, I _know_ you can.”


	2. Time for Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy and Ellie deal with a grieving father while others make plans and stick their noses in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not think this would take that long to get out, but I had to rework the beginning a few times and life interfered the way that it does. I wanted to have it done and jump right into the thick of things, but I've had to adjust a lot of my initial ideas for this story because of the last one and also because of the time travel complication. I almost wish I'd left the Doctor and company out of this one, but then it's not really the same if I do.

* * *

“Oh, really?” Hardy asked in the most biting tone possible. “And how is that, then? You had some sort of vision that told you I could do this, did you? What else did you see in your mystical vision?”

Ellie grimaced, seeing the hurt all over the man's face. He'd come to Hardy for help, and he was getting the man's temper, which she and his family had already pushed toward its limits, not that he should be taking it out on a random stranger. She didn't want him doing to her, but she knew this poor man didn't deserve it, either. 

“Um,” the man began, frowning. “No. I... I read about you in the papers.”

“Oh, brilliant,” Hardy muttered. “You saw the one where I was the worst cop in Britain, did you? And you thought this would be a fun prank? I'm not in the mood.”

“I read about you and Sandbrook. How you never gave up on the case, how you found those girls' killer after two years, after it all fell apart, after everyone blamed you for a failure that wasn't yours,” the man said. “I thought... a man like that, he'd know how to get justice for my daughter after all these years.”

“I'm still waiting for the cameras to show up, and I'm not amused,” Hardy said. “Look, there are channels you can go through. You should be talking to the detective who had your daughter's case—if there even is a case—and if they're not actively investigating it, then you have other options, but not only do I not have jurisdiction in your case, I'm not on active duty.”

Ellie grimaced. The idea of trying to get him past his physical was daunting even for her. She didn't know how they'd ever convince anyone that a man dying of a heart condition was not only fine, he now had two fully functional hearts and was in the best shape of his hybrid life.

“You know what to do, though. You'd know how to find the truth,” the man insisted. “I need someone like you.”

Ellie looked at Hardy. “I suppose going private would allow you to still do what you used to do.”

“Don't start, Miller.”

“You're DS Miller,” the man said. “You worked with him on Sandbrook. You'd help me, wouldn't you? The two of you. You can do it.”

“No,” Hardy said, and Ellie gave him a look. She knew he was between things, apparently had some idea of leaving Broadchurch with his father, but he kept insisting he didn't want to deal with the alien part of things, that he wanted his old life back. So far, this was the best way of getting that for him that she'd seen. “Go hire some other idiot.”

“Hardy,” she snapped, losing her temper. “Could you be a little more human for one bloody minute? You could at least _look_ at the case before you dismiss it out of hand.”

“No.”

“What seems to be the problem here?” The Doctor asked, coming up to them. He flashed the gaping man a wide grin as their guest tried to figure out exactly what he was seeing.

“Uh... I didn't know you had a twin,” the man began, looking at Hardy in confusion.

“I don't.”

“Hello, I'm the Doctor,” he said, offering the man a hand to shake. “Did I hear you say that you had a case for Alec and Ellie?”

“No, he doesn't, and even if he did, you would absolutely _not_ be involved,” Hardy told him, and Ellie just laughed. “Shut up, Miller.”

“I'm sorry,” the man said, frowning. “I'm confused, and I really did want you to take a look at my daughter's case.”

“Of course we will,” the Doctor said, still smiling. “Tea, anyone?”

* * *

“Well, there goes Mr. Nosy,” Donna said, looking back at the group that was still standing in the Latimers' yard, giving them all a bit of a smile. She'd figured that the Doctor would be late for that plea hearing, and he was, though by a lot less than Rose kept telling them all—that year he'd missed was one he'd never live down, not with Rose telling everyone the story and Jenny with her regenerations to remember it.

“I think it's a bit sweet,” Rose said, which of course she would. “He's concerned about his son.”

“He's going over to stick his pointy little nose into his son's business, you mean,” Donna said, shaking her head. She didn't think that the Doctor knew how to stay out of anything, even when he claimed he didn't want to be involved. He'd forgotten about the plea hearing, but that went right along with him not sticking around for any of the cleaning up, never one to face the mess he'd created even when he saved the day.

“Dad _is_ worried about something,” Daisy said, frowning. “I can't tell what, but he's been a little distant since... well, he started right before the hearing, I guess. We went to Roald Dahl Plass, and then next thing I know, he's waking us up to take us in.”

Rose frowned, and Donna looked at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Rose said, and when Donna put her hands on her hips, she shook her head. “No, I just need to have my own conversation with Alec later. It's not important now.”

“Yeah,” Donna said, though she didn't really want to think about that man being Rose's son, too. It was a little easier to accept with the Doctor. He might not look nine hundred, but he was alien enough to where that didn't matter as much by now. Rose, though, was still human, more or less, and even if she had come back from the dead.

“You going home with your family, Chloe?” Daisy asked, and the other girl wrinkled her nose.

“Nah, there's no point in it. Mum's going to go to bed, I think, after she gets Lizzie down, and Dad... Well, I think I'd rather do something, you know? I almost miss Dean. He'd be up for just about anything.”

Rose grimaced, and Jenny frowned, not quite understanding that one, which was probably for the best, all things considered.

Donna smiled, having a much better idea. “It seems to me that we were promised a shopping trip, weren't we? You told Daisy she could dip into her part of Vitex, so we—”

“Vitex?” Chloe asked. “I drink that stuff all the time, but I don't really think that I want any now. Mum and Dad are probably having something stronger as we speak.”

“Oh, love. Didn't anyone tell you? Rose over there, her father owns Vitex,” Donna said with a smile as the girl's eyes widened. “And as Rose is... well, let's just say that Alec is due part of her fortune, which also makes Daisy entitled to some. A lot of it, actually, as it's a family business, and Rose should have put you in as a shareholder. If not, I'll do it soon as I'm back at the office.”

“You own Vitex?” Chloe asked, staring at Rose.

“My dad does,” Rose said. “Sort of, anyway. It was his idea. It worked. Donna's right. We could have a shopping trip. Or a girls' night out. Though maybe your mum would like that, too, and we should delay any big trips for tomorrow or the day after.”

“Time machine,” Donna reminded her. “We could always come back for Beth and Ellie in the morning.”

“Assuming we had a driver,” Rose countered. “And I'm not sure we'll be able to pry the Doctor away from Alec right now. We'd be better off picking something local for tonight, at least.”

“The Doctor isn't the only one who knows how to drive the TARDIS,” Donna reminded her, looking over at Jenny. The Doctor had been giving her lessons daily, not that Donna was entirely sure she wanted to put their trip in that girl's hands, either. Jenny was a sweetheart, really, but she was a little too much like her father for Donna to trust.

“Still better to wait,” Rose said, grimacing. “And I don't know when I became the practical one, but there must be other things to do here.”

“Most of them involve the water,” Chloe said. “And there's the arcade, but I don't—”

“What's an arcade?” Jenny asked, and Donna groaned. She knew where they were headed, and she might just have to spend the evening in the TARDIS alone.

Well, she supposed she could always call Lee and tell him how things went at the hearing.

* * *

“I suppose you figure I should make the tea.”

“Miller, do you really think having him in your kitchen is any sort of a good idea?” Hardy asked, and she frowned. His father gave him a look, affronted, which had Miller biting her lip and trying not to laugh.

“I suppose you have a point. I don't think I want my toaster exploding or anything else,” Miller said. “Though... you could always do it yourself, seeing as you're not the least bit inclined to be sociable.”

He grunted, deciding he could always leave if she assumed he was off taking care of the tea. He didn't want to stay here, needed to get away from her for a while. He'd rather have forgotten everything in Scotland, as the others had—though now Rose remembered, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that, but if his father did, he showed no sign of it.

“I don't think that is wise, either, Ellie,” the Doctor observed, amused, and Hardy glared at him. He smiled back. “I think someone might make a run for it if we do.”

“Oh, bloody hell. Why is neither of you a bloody adult?” Ellie muttered. “Fine, stay there. And you—sir, whatever your name is—”

“Alan Rayes,” the man told her. “My daughter's name was Sylvie.”

“I'd like to hear all about her soon as I get back,” Miller told him with a smile. She pointed a finger at Hardy. “Don't move. And behave. That goes for you, too, Doctor.”

The Doctor frowned at her, and so did Rayes. He seemed confused, again, and Hardy didn't know why he was bothering to stick around. If the man wasn't being so bloody stupid, they would all have gone by now, and that was what he wanted.

“I've got files on the case if that would be helpful,” Rayes began. He looked between the two of them. “You're really not twins?”

“No,” Hardy said, refusing to explain that the Doctor was his father. That was information that Rayes did not need and would not believe.

“I think it's more important to discuss your daughter,” the Doctor said. “Ellie will be back in a minute, and we can fill her in on anything that she's missed.”

Hardy looked at his father. “Since when does this sort of thing interest you? It's a cold case that has nothing to do with your specialty. You don't have to be here for this.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” the Doctor asked, looking a bit hurt. He frowned. “No, that's not it, is it? You're only mildly irritated with me, which is about normal for our interactions, but something else is definitely eating at you.”

Hardy shook his head. “I am not doing this with you, and not now.”

He started to rise just as Miller came back into the room. “Oi, what did I tell you about moving? What is wrong with you?”

Hardy sighed. “I swear, Miller, you are—”

“Oh,” his father said. “I think I understand now. That is—Mr. Rayes, tell us about your daughter. And Ellie, do sit by me, please. I haven't had the pleasure of your company for... oh, years now, I suppose it is. And isn't, all the same. Bit timey-wimey, as usual.”

“What?” Rayes asked, frowning.

“Again, ignore him,” Hardy said, shaking his head. The Doctor should know to watch what he said around people who didn't know about time travel, but then he never seemed to watch what he said, period.

“Tell us about your daughter,” Miller began as she sat down. “What happened to her, and why do you need Hardy's help?”

“Sylvie died ten years ago,” Rayes began. He swallowed, apparently having trouble now that he was trying to give them details. “She was killed.”

“We gathered that much,” Hardy said, and Miller reached around the Doctor to smack him. He ignored her. “You need to tell us what actually happened if you expect us to do anything about it, and I don't think we can.”

“Hardy—”

“I am not letting you give this man false hope, Miller. There may well be nothing we can do, and I won't lie about that,” Hardy insisted. “If you can't accept that, then leave. I won't have you making promises we can't keep.”

The Doctor looked at him. “That is rather a good policy, isn't it? I'm afraid I always promise too much. Bad habit, but I always want those days when everyone lives.”

Rayes frowned at him again. “I... It's hard to talk about what happened to Sylvie.”

“I'm sure it is,” Miller said, “but if you want anyone's help, you have to tell us about her. You don't know what might be important. Sometimes the little things are what adds up to the most unlikely person being the killer.”

“That's just it,” Rayes said, looking at her in anguish. “They always said they thought they knew who killed Sylvie. They just never proved it.”

* * *

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor began, frowning in confusion. He didn't typically deal in murders of this sort—his killers tended to be aliens or part of some sort of conspiracy. He wasn't used to the sort of case his son worked, though he was rather fascinated by it all the same, as he found Alec's mind and interests intriguing, if only because his son chose that lifestyle over the Doctor's. “Did you say they knew who killed Sylvie?”

Rayes nodded. “Everyone sort of did. That's why I knew that DI Hardy could help. He found that man they thought killed those girls, and he found a way to prove it even after the trial fell apart.”

“Of course he did,” the Doctor said, his pride in his son's achievements hard to contain. He might not have thought he wanted more children after what he'd lost, and he certainly was not much of a father at the best of times, but he found that he was rather fond of and impressed by Alec on multiple occasions, and having Daisy helped.

Alec grumbled something under his breath, and the Doctor figured it was better if Rayes didn't hear it. That man would not understand.

“I can't work miracles,” Hardy said, giving the Doctor a pointed look. He shrugged. The Doctor supposed he _could_ use the TARDIS to go back in time and solve the murder—by watching it happen—but he wasn't planning on it. Not only did that sort of thing cause his companions to bring reapers down on everyone's head, but he was not going to do that sort of thing willy nilly, or he'd have to do it for everyone, not just one person.

Nope, that wasn't happening. That would tie him to Earth constantly and be more depressing than most of his life so far. So many deaths, never intervening, never saving anyone... He couldn't do that. He knew murder happened, and he couldn't stop it every time, and he wasn't going to relive it, not even for his son.

“I'm not asking for you to bring my daughter back,” Rayes insisted. “I know that's not possible. It's just that so long has gone by without ever knowing what really happened, and I have been stuck wondering, every day, what must have happened. She suffered, I know that, and I know... I know there's nothing I can do for her. Not now. Not unless... I want to find her killer. I have to know that justice was done.”

“That doesn't always happen,” Alec said. “I've seen more murderers and rapists and drug dealers go free than I want to think about.”

“I know, but if you _could_ look at the file, maybe you'd see something they missed.”

Alec sat back, frowning again, but with a look that said wheels were turning in his brain. For all his efforts to resist it, something about this case had his interest. The Doctor thought about it, and he came to the same conclusion just before Ellie did.

“You don't believe that the man the police think killed your daughter did it, do you?”

Rayes sighed. “She went out with her boyfriend that night. Like a thousand other nights. They were always together. Glued to each other's hips. When she disappeared, no one could find him, either. His family always insisted he would never have hurt her, but when her body showed up and his didn't... he got the blame for it anyway.”

“Only no one has seen him in over ten years,” Alec said, watching Rayes for his reaction, and the other man nodded. “You think he's dead, don't you?”


	3. Time for Conflicting Details

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rayes explains about his daughter while some comments from certain Time Lords and company put the whole thing in jeopardy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was conflicted over how soon to introduce a part of this, and I suppose it shows in how the characters almost got the story off track with some not so funny humor. I did try to counter that, but it wasn't easy. They just did not want to talk about the case. Or they wanted to say too much and ruin the later reveal, which just proves I can't win.

* * *

“I'm almost sure of it,” Alan said. “I'm not the only one who paid for detectives to look for him over the years. His family did, too. They wanted to prove he'd had nothing to do with it, wanted to believe that he disappeared because he had amnesia or something. I don't know that they still believe that. They stopped talking to me years ago.”

“Because you said you thought it was possible he was involved in what happened to your daughter,” Ellie said, frowning a bit. “Did you ever see him do anything to her before that day? Was he ever violent or short tempered?”

Alan shook his head. “No. I never saw anything like that. Sylvie was my only child. I raised her on my own after her mother died. I'd have done anything for that girl. She was my world. I never... if he'd even tried, I would have told her not to see him again, and I would have made sure she didn't. She deserved better than that. Trouble is, we all thought she had it. He seemed like a decent sort.”

Ellie bit her lip. This whole thing sounded horrible, and there was a part of her that wanted nothing to do with it. Not another murder, another grieving family. She didn't know that she could do it again. She had struggled with Danny's case, and not just because she knew him or her husband turned out to be the killer. Then came Lisa and Pippa, and she had been mixed up in that because of Hardy, and in the end, she was glad she was. She'd helped give those families answers and put three killers away.

“What happened the night your daughter disappeared?” Ellie asked, not sure why Hardy and his father were both so quiet now. Shouldn't the one at least have some grumbling to do while the other one rambled on?

“Um... well, they went out and never came back.”

“Start at the beginning, and walk us through the entire day,” Hardy said. “Be as specific as you can. What was breakfast like? Did she seem at all preoccupied? Was she in a good mood? Upset? Looking forward to the evening or dreading it? Did she mention any conflict between her and the boyfriend?”

“Incessant questions,” Ellie reminded him, and he gave her a look.

“Maybe you should start with how old she was,” the Doctor suggested. “Half the time, I'm picturing a little girl with pigtails and curls, the rest of the time a grown woman, and it's a little confusing. Was she still in school or had she finished?”

“Sylvie was in her last year,” Alan answered. He reached into his pocket and took out a photograph, holding it out to them. “This is her and Gabriel, taken a couple weeks before she died. They went to a school dance together.”

“She was lovely,” Ellie said, taking the picture and trying not to let the emotions overwhelm her. Sylvie was more of a classic beauty, with a full head of curls and the brightest smile that Ellie knew this side of Daisy Hardy. She looked so happy with her boyfriend, not caring a toss that her dress was not that flattering or designer. She just seemed glad to be alive.

Hardy frowned at the picture. “Did she make that dress herself?”

“Yes, actually,” Alan answered with pride. “She was quite the craftswoman, my girl. I don't think there was a thing she tried she couldn't make if she kept at it.”

“Better than me,” Ellie said. “I'm rubbish at doing buttons.”

“That's what my screwdriver is for,” the Doctor said, and she wasn't the only one to frown at him, despite the many times Alan had already been warned to ignore him. “She does seem a little familiar somehow, though I've known so many people I really can't say why she's at all giving me that sense. Too many centuries, too many planets.”

Alan frowned again. “You don't actually make much sense.”

“My father's insane,” Hardy said, “Ignore everything he says. It's just simpler that way.”

“Oi,” the Doctor said. “I object to that. I'm not insane. I'm eccentric. After nine hundred years, it happens. I'm old, and my head gets too full of stuff. At least I'm not half as cranky as my son. Though... with a few of my other faces, that was an entirely different story. And when I'm suffering from regeneration sickness all bets are off. Should have seen me last time. That was bad. Almost let Earth get taken over by the Sycorax. Bad times. And my friends almost died to a Christmas tree.”

“Uh...”

Hardy gave the poor man across from him a grim smile. “You still think we should take your daughter's case, do you?”

Ellie tried to restrain the conversation again. “You were telling us about Sylvie's last day. She still lived at home, didn't she? You got up for breakfast together?”

Alan nodded. “I think I had toast. She didn't want anything. She was in one of those phases. Thought she was too fat and figured skipping breakfast would help with that. I kept telling her she wasn't, but what did I know? I was just her dad.”

Ellie forced another smile. “So she left early for school?”

“Right on time, for once. Gabriel was taking her, and he had a bad habit of showing up late,” Alan told them. “He was a good kid, mostly, but he really wasn't the most punctual. I liked him, though. Mostly.”

“Up until he was accused of killing your daughter, at least,” Hardy said, and Ellie gave him a look. That was too much like Jack Marshall, wasn't it? No one had minded him until Danny died, and then he was suddenly an outcast among former friends, the whole town turned against him.

Alan grimaced. “The police said it had to be him, and back then I believed them. I thought they knew more than I did. I didn't realize they'd just chosen to blame Gabriel because he was easy. They didn't have to look at anyone else. It was done as far as they were concerned, has been for years. I just... I can't accept that. Not anymore.”

* * *

“Your granddaughter is taking the others down to the arcade,” Donna called from the other room, and the Doctor frowned, looking back at his son. He swore he'd never been told there was an arcade in town, and he supposed it didn't matter as he could go there whenever he pleased, but he would have liked to have been invited for that expedition.

“You didn't tell me there was an arcade.”

“You are like a child,” Alec told him, and the Doctor grinned in response.

“I shudder to think what he'd do there,” Ellie admitted. “He'd probably rig all the games with his sonic screwdriver.”

“Oi,” the Doctor said, frowning. “I'll have you all know that I am quite capable of winning those games without the slightest bit of cheating.”

“I still think the sonic screwdriver would have to stay in the TARDIS,” Alec said. He gave their guest another tight smile, and that poor man looked like he was about to breakdown. The Doctor knew it wouldn't help, explaining their situation, not in the least. He had so few that accepted that he was, in fact, from another planet. He also had very few that understood that being from another planet also made him quite capable of looking like he did while he had a grown son and granddaughter.

“I found this just about ready, so I thought I'd bring it out,” Donna said, carrying a tray with tea into the room. “This is a lovely service, Ellie. Where did you get it?”

“Oh, it was my grandmother's,” Ellie said, smiling back at her. “My mum gave it to me when Joe and I got married.”

“That looks rather familiar, too,” the Doctor said. “I wonder if I knew some of the original owners.”

“Knowing you, you probably did,” Donna said. She saw Alan and forced a smile. “Oh, hello. I'm Donna, since no one bothered to introduce me.”

“Alan Rayes,” the man told her. “I... I thought to ask DI Hardy to find the person who killed my daughter.”

“You're dealing with a murder?” Donna asked, looking over at him. “A _murder?”_

“Oh, don't be like that, I know you enjoyed our time with Agatha Christie,” the Doctor said, and she shrugged in that way that only Donna did. He was glad she liked coming with him despite her job at Vitex and Lee. She didn't have to travel with him, but she did, and he enjoyed her company.

“I think Alan is a little worried he made the wrong choice,” Ellie said with a grimace. “We've been trying to discuss his daughter's case and her last day, but we haven't made much progress.”

“And here I thought I was in for a boring night in the TARDIS while everyone else was off having fun,” Donna said, reaching for the pot and pouring herself a cup of tea. “Well, what happened, then? Tell us about it.”

Alan frowned again.

“You'll find that each of the Doctor's companions is a little... unique,” Alec said, looking at the man with what might actually be genuine sympathy that time. “I'd understand if you'd rather have someone else look at your daughter's case.”

“I have had others look into it before, but no one's found anything so far. Most of them looked for any sign of Gabriel surviving and getting a new life. I asked for the wrong thing before, and now I want someone to look at it from the beginning, not assuming that Gabriel killed her, but to find the truth. I just want to know why my daughter died.”

Alec grimaced. “Even if you find that Gabriel is not her killer and learn who is, that may not give you the answer you need. I've seen it too many times before. Knowing the killer isn't always the closure you think it will be. Sometimes it just opens the wound wider.”

“I just want to know if Gabriel actually killed her. If he didn't, then I want to know who did,” Alan told him. “Do you think you can help me? Or did I go to the wrong person?”

“You went to the right person,” Ellie assured him, and Alec gave her a look. “I think he's more than capable of helping you with this, and I would know. I've worked with him before. He's a bit difficult, but he knows what he's doing. He's just not... having his family around does seem to bring out the worst in him.”

“Stop speaking for me,” Alec grumbled. He sighed. “If you leave the file with me, I will look it over, and I can let you know if I have any suggestions for you. By then, my family should be gone, and I'll be able to give the case the attention it deserves.”

“Oh, come on,” Donna said. “You can work with the Doctor here. He can even help. So can I. Did I ever tell you that I temped in a police station before? No, well, I have. Super temp. I keep very good records.”

“You have duties at Vitex,” Alec reminded her.

“I'm on holiday,” she said with a smile. “The perks of knowing a time traveler. I can take months off if I like, maybe even more.”

Alec barely suppressed a groan. “You are not helping.”

“Oh, I think I'm a bit jealous of those perks,” Ellie said, giving Alec a look. “So far, I seem to get only the downsides of knowing a Time Lord.”

Alec rubbed his forehead. “Now everyone sounds insane. Good work, Miller.”

She winced. “Bloody hell.”

* * *

“We're not actually crazy,” Donna said, trying to be soothing, and Hardy thought she might just manage it, as Rayes was apparently so desperate he didn't care who looked at his daughter's case as long as someone did. That did not seem promising for the state of this case, since if there was something, anything there, he would already have had some sort of result by now.

Forensics had improved in the years since his daughter's death. Someone could have revisited that angle at the very least, but it didn't sound like anyone had. Whether that meant that the problem was Rayes or the case itself was difficult to know. Hardy found the man a little irritating, but then everything was irritating at this point.

“Eccentric,” the Doctor said. “Very, very eccentric. Harmless, really, but definitely a bit different. Unique. That's another good word for it. I like that one. Has a certain way of rolling off the tongue.”

Rayes nodded, still looking a bit overwhelmed. “Then... you can help me?”

“I don't know about that. I didn't want to take this case, and I still don't,” Hardy said, rising. “You would be better off speaking to someone else. Someone with a more... stable situation, preferably one still on active duty with the police force, who can get the evidence reexamined forensically. There have been improvements in the tests in the last few years, and there may be something there that was missed in the past.”

“He is right about that,” Miller said. “Forensic testing has improved. We'd need someone to reopen the case officially and that would take something to convince them. New evidence, probably, and that's going to be difficult.”

“I can't give you evidence,” Rayes said, shaking his head. “I don't have it. All I have is... doubts. I don't think that Gabriel did it. I'd like to know for sure.”

“Go back to the day Sylvie died.” Miller said. “Sit back down, Hardy. Hear him out. Mr. Rayes, after Sylvie left for school that day, did you see her again?”

He nodded. “She was home after, for a bit. She always came home to make sure her class work was done before she went out for anything. She was a responsible girl. I know every father probably says this about his daughter, but I couldn't have asked for a better one. I was there when Gabriel came by to pick her up for the movies, too. We said goodbye, she kissed my cheek. I never saw her again. They... they didn't even want me identifying her body because of the shape it was in.”

Miller winced. “I'm sorry.”

“How long after your daughter disappeared was her body found?” Hardy asked. Something about this was nagging at him. He didn't like it. Was this some sort of strange test? Some kind of set up?

“Three days,” Rayes answered. “I reported her missing that night when she wasn't back by curfew. She's been late before, but not like that. I knew something was wrong. No one saw her, no one saw Gabriel. They found her in a field outside of town.”

“No sign of his car or anything belonging to him?”

“No. Not that they ever told me about,” Rayes said. “I don't know if they just didn't tell me or if nothing ever turned up. I know they searched that field for days. They didn't think she died there, but her body was left there, had been there for at least a day.”

“Oh, God,” Miller whispered. Donna looked upset as well.

That had Hardy sitting back, frowning. Sylvie's killer had wanted her found, leaving her in the open like that. Why, though? Was it the boyfriend thinking it kinder to let her family find her body? Or was it something else? A misdirect? A way of keeping the place where she'd been killed a secret? Why? What was so important about that place?

“I don't understand how anyone could do that to someone, but to Sylvie? She was such a sweetheart. Everyone loved her.”

Hardy bit back saying that was what everyone said. Especially grieving family who turned their missing member into a martyr.

“I need the files,” Hardy told him. He would look them over and send the man on his way. Even if he might have been interested in working a case, he wasn't doing it with everyone watching and sticking their noses in. Before Scotland, he'd have wanted Miller's help. Not now.

“Here,” Rayes said, handing them over. “Please tell me you can find her killer.”

Hardy took the file and flipped it open. “I can't promise you anything.”

* * *

“I've put that poor man in his car,” Donna said as she came back into the house. “I feel a bit bad sending him off like that, but since the only spare rooms we have are in an alien spaceship, I didn't think we should keep him.”

“It's fine,” Ellie told her. “The inn isn't far from here, and he should have no trouble making that drive, even if he is a bit upset. It really would have been worse for him, trying to stay. I have to get the boys back from Lucy, and we almost did give him a fright with all that alien talk.”

“It is not my fault that people don't believe we exist,” the Doctor grumbled. “I swear it should be impossible to deny by now, but no, you humans, always insisting on pretending we're just fiction. Mind you, my life does seem strange most of the time, but then again, who wants ordinary?”

“Some of us prefer it,” Alec said, not looking up from the file.

“Ha,” Donna said. “Like your life is at all ordinary. I'm not even talking about your father, either. You chase murders. Look at you, right now. You're looking for a killer. That's not exactly the definition of normal.”

“It is for us,” Ellie said. “We're police. That makes this our job, and he happens to be good at it. Wanker.”

“Please tell me you're only calling him names because he's not sharing the files,” Donna muttered, so not interested in thinking about the Doctor's son doing that. Ellie gave her a half smile. “So, where do we need to go? I'm sure it will only take a bit in the TARDIS. Pop back, see what happened, come back, give him an answer.”

Ellie looked at the Doctor. “Can we do that?”

“Well,” he drew in a breath as he spoke. “Technically, yes, but I don't know that we can in a practical sense.”

“No one else gets the luxury of going back in time and seeing every murder happen,” Alec said. “We start using time travel for one, then we have to use them for them all. Same with any advanced technology that we have that would trace the killer. No. It's not happening.”

Donna shook her head. She did understand the importance of not mucking up the past, but this was just going back to take a look. “You have access other people don't.”

“I don't want it,” Alec snapped. “I have solved cases on my own for years without being a half-alien freak, and I don't need to use that now.”

“Alec,” the Doctor began, sounding a bit hurt. “You don't actually... I mean, of course I know there are downsides to our respective uniqueness, but surely you don't hate what you are—what we are—so much that... would you rather I didn't send you to the past and save you?”

Alec took off his glasses, pinching his nose. “I would rather not have aliens disrupting my life constantly. The rest of it is... It is what it is. I can't change what I am. I just don't want my life to be nothing _but_ that.”

“So you hunt murderers,” Donna said. “That's a good alternative.”

He ignored her, going back to the file. He turned up the paper and a photograph fell out. The Doctor grabbed it before he could get to it, not that he was doing much looking at anything but what was in front of him. “Ailie.”

“What?”

Alec traced his fingers along the photograph with one hand, using the other to move across his own stomach. “No. No, that's not possible.”

He dropped the file on the floor as he rose, rushing to the door and darting out of it before anyone had a chance to react. It slammed shut behind him, leaving them all to flinch. Donna watched the Doctor and Ellie pick up the file.

He sat back with a photograph, frowning.

“Doctor,” Donna began. “What just happened?”

“I am not entirely sure,” he admitted, “but I do hope I'm wrong about it. Otherwise, this is far worse than we first thought.”


	4. Time for Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor attempts to reach his son, while others have conversations of their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the Doctor's memory references stuff in other stories. I know it's a bit of a spoiler for the one story now, but I wrote that one a while back, so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's already read it. And so it's not really a spoiler, but he does talk about what he did in A Short Delay and also a bit from Just a Stupid Dance. I don't know that it matters, but I'll just say it anyway in case.

* * *

_The Doctor was restless. He knew that he shouldn't be, as he had a lot to do, finishing things before he erased all his memories of his son for a second time—or was it third or fourth? He wasn't sure. He knew that he'd forget when Alec was a baby, and he'd forget now, in a few short days, just as soon as he was done cultivating a new TARDIS. He knew that was part an excuse—he could have left that for when he did remember Alec again, knowing as he did that he would remember that he had grown a TARDIS as soon as he remembered his son._

_He was being selfish, and he knew it, but he wanted to hold onto this—to his family—for as long as he could before he forgot and returned to the emptiness that Rose could only partially fill, wonderful as she was to have at his side._

_He left it up to the TARDIS to decide where to take them, and he wasn't terribly surprised to find that they ended up in Scotland. He'd seen his son again, albeit while Alec was deep in a healing coma that was barely working, keeping him alive after that gunshot, but that wasn't enough. Seeing hadn't been enough, and he'd almost woken him with a touch._

_Instead, he'd touched his son's mind, finding to his dismay that his son was reliving a night of horror in his forced slumber, and he'd almost lost it when he saw Sarah Jane, who hadn't protected Alec then, when he was still a boy. She'd talked sense into him, but that had not been enough._

_No, it would never be enough._

_The TARDIS understood, and she took them into the past, to that same night he'd raged against._

_Opening the door, the Doctor stepped out into the darkness of the night. He hoped Rose would stay asleep while he was gone, though he knew she deserved to be with him for this. Alec was her son, too, and she'd given up as much as he had to make sure their son survived, perhaps even more. Still, he couldn't let her. This Rose was too young, so young that she'd want to do what he was tempted to do himself, change it all._

_That girl shouldn't have to die. Alec shouldn't have to suffer or carry that memory with him. This night should not be a fixed point. The Doctor wanted nothing more than to undo all of it. He couldn't, but that didn't mean that he didn't want to, and if Rose said anything about it, then he probably would, damn the consequences._

_He walked through the woods, using the sense he could just barely feel from his son. He knew that Alec was in poor shape by now, but even so, the weakness of his mental connection worried the Doctor, and he started running, doubling his pace when he heard the sounds of a struggle ahead of him._

_He saw Alec backing away from the fallen body of his attacker. The man might be alive, but the Doctor paid no attention to him as his son collapsed. He knelt next to him, looking him over in disbelief. He'd known it was bad, that he'd almost lost Alec before he met him again, but this... No. He couldn't accept this._

_Alec was dying. If the Doctor didn't do something now, his son would never make it to the hospital._

_“No, no, open your eyes,” the Doctor pleaded, begging his son not to give up now. He'd found him. He could save him. He would. “That's a bit better. Come on. Hold on, now. Ambulance is on its way. You just have to hold on a bit longer. Please. You can do that for me, can't you?”_

_“Ailie...”_

_That broke the Doctor's heart a bit, but he already knew she was gone. He just had to make sure that he didn't lose Alec, too. He had to save his son._

_“Just hold on. A little longer. Hold on.”_

* * *

“Do you know what any of that was about?” Donna asked after the Doctor left, and Ellie shook her head. She was just as much in the dark as the other woman, since the Doctor hadn't explained anything before he went after his son.

“I think I heard the name before,” Ellie said. “I don't know what it means, only that it has something to do with a fixed point.”

Donna frowned. “This has to do with a fixed point? I mean, I was there for one. Pompeii. That was horrible, but how is one name a fixed point? Unless it's not a name, but then... what, a planet?”

Ellie frowned. “I don't think so. To my knowledge, Hardy's only been off planet a few times—once on a ship and once to the moon, plus a hop to Flyboln and some random planet the TARDIS picked to show the kids and everyone there were alien planets. Oh, and that hospital planet. I almost forgot that one, but still... I didn't think any of them were named Ailie, and none of them involved a fixed point.”

Donna nodded. “So probably not a person. It would be so much easier if he would actually tell us what's going on for once. Drives me barmy when he doesn't.”

“I want to say that's genetic, something they both do as Time Lords, but it might just be a male thing,” Ellie muttered, shaking her head. She didn't know what she was going to do with either Time Lord. They were both rather impossible to deal with, but the more they did this, the more she wondered why she bothered with either of them.

Hardy did seem to be her problem, and she owed the Doctor in some ways, for helping them find a way to lock Joe up for good, though it was hard to accept that a man with a time machine couldn't go back and fix all of that, stop Joe from killing Danny, and really make it right.

None of this was right.

“I have to go get the boys from my sister's,” Ellie said, and Donna looked at her with a frown. “My sons. I have two, and I left them with my sister when I went to Cardiff, but since I'm home, I should get them.”

“Aren't you back early?” Donna asked. “Why not take the time to yourself? Have a night off. Or not, since you've got a murder to deal with, but isn't it better to do that when they're not at home?”

“Yes, to a point, but both of them have been in the TARDIS and to alien planets. They think the whole alien thing is great, and if I don't get them when the Doctor's here, I'm liable to lose my oldest all over again. Plus... Fred likes his 'Uncle Alec' and it might help if he's here. Hardy does manage to be more polite in front of children, oddly enough.”

“That's not so strange. I think we all censor ourselves when it comes to kids.”

“Yeah, because we're human and we think to spare the young, but Hardy? I used to wonder how awful his kids would be, though Daisy's a sweetheart, and he has sheltered her from a lot, but that same courtesy did not extend to my son during our investigation into his best friend's murder.” 

“Exactly why do you put up with him, then?”

“Honestly, most of the time, I don't know.”

* * *

The Doctor crossed the field toward the low wall, not thinking much of it as a chair, though he had sat on worse over the centuries. He thought Alec had as well, since he didn't seem bothered by his current position. Maybe that pain was easier to cope with than the past. The Doctor could agree with that sentiment. He found his past one he ran from most times, though this time he needed to stay and help his son. That went rather against what he was, and that was rather horrible of him, wasn't it?

He was not good at emotional support. Never had been.

“It's a nice view,” he said, sitting down next to his son. “If a tad uncomfortable as far as seating goes. I mean, stone chairs have been around for centuries, but even amongst those early ones, there were better offerings. These are awful.”

“You can stop wittering on. I'm not going to be distracted by it,” Alec said. “I know why you're here. It's not like it's hard to guess.”

“You could at least let me pretend I'm not rubbish at being a father,” the Doctor told him, and Alec frowned. “I came out here to be some comfort. Support. Help. Anything useful. Instead, I'm annoying you again. That's not what I want, and definitely not what you need.”

Alec shook his head. “What I want is to forget.”

“Ah, that. Can't say I haven't felt the same, but I've never managed it. I'm the one who regrets it but can never escape it, no matter how far I run,” the Doctor said. He drew in a breath and let it out. “One of them lived, didn't he?”

Alec nodded. “I was trying to ignore it, the small similarities. It should have been straight forward. Sylvie Rayes, killed by her boyfriend in one of those stupid domestic things. Maybe she got pregnant, he didn't want to be a father... that sort of thing. Only it keep nagging at me. She disappeared with her boyfriend—not that Ailie and I were dating, but everyone thought we were. Sylvie lost her mother, only had her father, was her father's world, just like Ailie. Her death destroyed her father, and he didn't survive losing her. Then there's that picture, like it was chosen to taunt me. That dress. Sylvie made hers, just like Ailie. And that school dance...”

“Her curls,” the Doctor said. “That was what I couldn't pin down. She had the same kind of look as your friend Ailie. A bit in the face, too, but not so instant that everyone would see it and assume they were twins. Or her reincarnation, I suppose some would argue, but I've only actually seen that happen on a few planets, and it didn't work quite like the mythology here.”

“Everyone who believes in that thinks they had to be someone famous,” Alec muttered. He shook his head again, frustrated. “It shouldn't be possible, but I saw him cut those marks into Ailie. They're almost exactly the same, like he copied them beat for beat. And I know... He did that to me, too. I don't... It should have scarred. It didn't, but it would have.”

“Oh, well,” the Doctor began, and Alec looked over at him.

“You weren't—”

“The motorist that found you? Guilty, I'm afraid, though hardly a motorist,” the Doctor said. “The TARDIS would pitch a fit if she heard herself called that. She is so much more than that, and she would be insulted. Still... I knew I couldn't change what happened that night. I wanted to, don't think I didn't. I would not willingly have let you suffer if I could have stopped it without breaking the universe. I almost did anyway when I saw you there...”

“You...”

“Went back in time, saved you, hated myself for not saving Ailie and sparing you all of that pain, had to forget, which was a bit of a relief, but I remember now,” the Doctor told him. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I would have... I wanted to heal you all the way, but you wouldn't have understood that, and they'd have thought you were working with those monsters if you hadn't been almost dead yourself.”

“Did you see him, then?” Alec asked. “The one that got away?”

* * *

“Your room is just up the stairs on the left,” the innkeeper told him, and Alan nodded, turning away from the cheery blonde with his key in hand. He didn't know that he wanted to stay here, but it was too far back to his house, and he had to know what Hardy's decision would be.

He climbed up the stairs, aware of each step, feeling them like a funeral procession, the same way he'd done it ever since his daughter went missing. He'd loved her more than life itself, and he'd only hung on to find out who killed her. He didn't care about anything else.

That had cost him, and he might die without ever knowing what really happened.

He didn't want to believe that, but he knew his time was running out, and he couldn't turn back time. He couldn't get Sylvie back. He couldn't save himself.

Alan walked into his room, closing the door behind him with a weary sigh. He didn't know what to do now. He was at the end of his rope, his last hope, he supposed, since he didn't know what he would do if DI Hardy wasn't able to help him. This was the last chance he had, and he needed to know he hadn't made the wrong choice coming here.

He almost had left when all of that crazy talk was going on, but where was he going to go? He didn't have the resources to go anywhere else, and he didn't have the time, either.

He sat down on the bed and took out his phone, dialing a familiar number. He put the phone to his ear, listening to it ring.

He was about to hang up, not wanting to leave another message, when the man on the other end picked up.

“Alan.”

“I was afraid you wouldn't be there,” Alan said, thinking he must be annoying and desperate, but this one, he understood. That was why they were friends. He needed a friend about now.

“Of course I'm here for you,” the other man soothed. “You know that. Now tell me what's wrong.”

“I think I made a horrible mistake.”

“A mistake? What mistake?”

“I found DI Hardy. He was back in Broadchurch, though everyone said he wouldn't be. Something about another case and Cardiff, but he was there. At Ellie Miller's house, just like I'd been told he would be if he wasn't in Wales. Only when I asked him about my daughter's case...”

“Go on,” the other man urged. “You can tell me anything. You know that.”

“I don't think he's the right person for this. He didn't want the case, and his family is insane,” Alan said. “It's too much. I thought this was going to be it. I'd finally know what happened to Sylvie. That's all I've wanted for ten years, but I asked the wrong man. He isn't going to help me.”

“You trust me, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“And you know I told you that you needed to see Alec Hardy, that he was the only one who could help you.”

“Yes.”

“And you saw him. That's exactly what you were supposed to do, Alan. Keep on trusting me. It's all going according to plan.”


	5. Time for Dispute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Hardy discuss the killer, but they don't agree on what to do, while others get a little nosy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't necessarily intended for Ellie to discover what she did as soon as she did, but then... she's not an idiot, so she would, right? Or am I just confused because I have a headache and a really strong sense of self-loathing today?

* * *

“It figures that you would get us thrown out of an arcade,” Rose said, and Jenny managed to look a little bit sheepish but not really that remorseful, very much like her father. Not that it was entirely her fault—games like that made their money of exploiting the lack of coordination in most humans, and Jenny was not only very flexible, she had advanced reflexes and senses that made winning almost ridiculously easy for her every time.

“It was pretty cool when she was playing, though,” Chloe said, and Daisy nodded. “That was fun. I haven't done that since Dad, Mum, and I went, trying to find a way to be normal again after Danny died. It was good.”

“I don't think I've been to anything like that since I was real little. We went up to Scotland because of one of Dad's relatives, forget which one, and Mum basically forced him to give us a day of fun—Dad didn't get on with his family, so we always got one day away from them. I wanted the arcade. Dad didn't, but he went and ended up winning me this giant stuffed bear. I had that thing for years. I used to leave my scarf on it.”

“Scarf?” Jenny asked, frowning.

“The one Dad swiped from Gramps when he was still a kid. It was Gramps' fourth body, I think,” Daisy said with a smile. “Mum hated it, and she was going to get rid of it when it got a hole in it, but Dad split it, and I have half and he has the other. It's still huge, but Gramps really liked it when he saw us again.”

“That curly haired weirdo was your grandfather, too?” Chloe asked, frowning. “I know the guy in the suit is, but that one? How is that possible?”

“Regeneration,” Jenny said. “I've done it, but I didn't change that much. I'm not sure what that means, but I know Dad's faces change. A lot. He showed me what he looked like before, but I've never actually met any of his other regenerations.”

“That's 'cause he'd have to cross his own timeline to introduce you, so he hasn't yet,” Daisy said, and Rose thought she was adjusting rather well to being part Time Lord, more so than her father. She accepted it with the kind of enthusiasm that was more like her grandfather. Rose liked the way he reacted when he saw a new planet, and Daisy was a lot the same.

Alec... not so much. Rose still didn't know how to reach her son, not that it helped that she wasn't very good at considering him her son when he was older than she was, if she only counted her human years, and even if she added in her complicated relationship with Bad Wolf, it still wasn't like she felt old enough to be his mother.

She was okay with Daisy, as long as she thought of her more like a friend than a granddaughter.

Rose never, ever wanted to explain that to her mother. 

She could be wrong. Maybe Jackie would like having Alec around, but then again, he did look a lot like the Doctor, so maybe not. It was hard to know anything, though more and more Rose worried about those words her mother had said. _You'll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there'll be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human._

And she wasn't, not entirely. She didn't even know what to think about that. 

She shook it off. No need spoiling everyone's evening with her worries about nothing. She'd caused enough pain when she died, and she didn't want to do that again.

“I think we should go get chips,” Rose said. “There is a good place around here for that, right?”

* * *

“I didn't see anyone but you,” the Doctor admitted, looking at his son. “Well, no, I sort of saw the man you hit with the rock, but not so that I paid any attention to him. I would have, had he gotten back up, but he didn't, so I just focused on you. I couldn't lose you, and you wouldn't have survived long enough for the ambulance to get there if I hadn't done something.”

Alec put a hand to his head. “So you had to go back to the past to make sure I lived to go to the future and save Rose to make sure I was even born. Rose was right. My timeline is a mess. It doesn't make any sense.”

“That's time for you,” the Doctor told him, grimacing. “I don't recommend trying to understand it as much as adapt with it because it's always changing. That's a bit nice, because things get new, and new things are always worth experiencing.”

Alec snorted. “Not everything new is good. First time you know what death is really like, that's not good. First loss, first pain, first murder...”

“Ailie was that for you, wasn't she?” the Doctor asked. “You were never that close to anyone. You had your mother and K-9, but Ailie was different. She wasn't family. She chose to befriend you, and she stuck around even after you gave her reason to go, thinking that would hurt less. Then one night comes, and it's all taken from you. She dies, you're tortured, and you were forced to kill in defense. One giant loss of innocence all at once.”

“Thank you for that commentary on my life,” Alec grumbled. “Like I didn't know that before.”

“I didn't say you didn't,” the Doctor said. “That night... it's a turning point, as much as it's also fixed. It's what changed you from being an anti-social genius who tinkered with machinery and dabbled with aliens into a bitter cop who hunted down every monster and won against them.”

“Not always.”

“Close enough,” the Doctor said, and his son glared at him. “Oh, true, there were losses that hurt, but on the whole... you stopped enough of them to where you could almost consider yourself... well, I think you won, and I'm allowed to decide these things, you know, as I'm the last of the Time Lords.”

“You know making pathetic jokes will not improve this situation any,” Alec told him. “Ailie is still dead. That man still got away with it, and he killed someone else. Not that I didn't already know that. The bastard told me that, the night Ailie died. He said he'd killed other couples. He said... the number was supposed to be impressive. I told him off, called him a bully, but I always knew that he'd gotten away with those other deaths, too.”

The Doctor studied his son. “I don't believe for a moment that you accepted that. I wouldn't have. I would have done everything I could to find and stop him. I'm surprised you haven't asked for my ship to go after him before now.”

Alec looked down at his hands. “We're all tied by the same timelines. I couldn't find any trace of him after he killed Ailie. That's the only moment I can place him anywhere, and you know that trying to stop him that far in the past would cause so much damage to the future... We can't, even if it seems like the right thing to do.”

“And that, I suppose, is the true curse of any Time Lord... even of any time traveler. You can alert the past, but at a cost, and only a few of us know how steep that cost is,” the Doctor said. “Still... there are ways of getting around an actual alteration of time. We could... go back and collect a bit of DNA, use that to tie him to other crimes if you want to do it that way, as you did with Joe Miller. Or... we could just track that DNA and find him ourselves.”

“We have to get the forensics from Sylvie's case done again,” Alec said. “He was there. I know he's the one who killed her. And her boyfriend. Rayes was right about that much. Gabriel didn't kill her, and he is dead. This man... he may have left Sylvie's body so she'd be found. He wanted attention drawn to her, to the case.”

“Because of you?” the Doctor asked, not liking that one bit. “You think he wanted Sylvie to be found as a challenge for you. He knew you became a policeman. He wanted you involved, but something went wrong, didn't it?”

“Gabriel took the blame, and no one looked for someone else, let alone connected it to a crime committed in another country,” Alec said, rising from the stone wall. “Not that I'm sure they would have. I survived.”

“Yes, but you knew there were others that didn't,” the Doctor said, jogging up to walk back with him. “You were looking, but somehow this case never found its way to you. He put a taunt out there ten years ago, and it fell flat. And there hasn't been anything since, has there?”

“Not that I know of, but obviously I missed something.”

* * *

“Oh, you're back,” Ellie said, almost walking out right into Hardy as she prepared to leave. She wasn't sure she should, now that she'd gotten a look at him. She knew he was upset, but she hadn't realized it would be this bad. That case file had shaken him good, and she really hoped it was nothing to do with Joe, though she had known something was bothering him even before they got back to her house.

“I told you I intended to get my things,” Hardy said, and his father frowned at him. “Besides, I need that case file. We have things to do.”

“I was just about to get the boys,” Ellie told him, frowning. “And why are you still in some awful hurry to leave? You weren't before, not in all this time that's passed since that one and the time loop and Joe's trial.”

“Not true, Miller. I just had extenuating circumstances,” Hardy told her. “There was the snowstorm that stranded a bunch of people, and plus my father sort of invaded your house at the time, robot dog and all. Then I got bit, had to heal up, and wasn't able to leave right after. There was a bit of a lull after that, and I had intended to leave, but you and Daisy found some reason to hate all the rental properties around here, and she refused to go to the inn, leaving me stuck here until now.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I cannot believe you are blaming me. Next time I won't go offering you a place to stay while you bring one alien crisis after another down on us. I never should have in the first place.”

“Oh, please,” Hardy grumbled, “you were the one that wouldn't let us leave. I didn't want to stay with you, as I told you several times. You just never listen.”

Donna turned to the Doctor. “Is it always like this with them?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

“Explains _a lot,”_ Donna said, and Ellie looked over at her with a frown only to get a grin in response. “So, are we headed to the past? Because I'm thinking we should go see what happened to those kids.”

“It is a little more complicated than that,” the Doctor said, and his son nodded. “I think we need a bit before we take any trips. We have some other... issues to work out first.”

“Ailie,” Ellie said, still not sure what that name meant to them. “Where does she tie into this?”

Hardy didn't answer, pushing past them and into the house. Ellie looked at the Doctor, who seemed worried. Great. That meant that things had to be bad, not that she didn't already know that from how Hardy was acting.

“Sylvie's killer did this before, didn't he?” Ellie asked. “Hardy recognized him. It's someone he knows or has arrested before. Oh, God. Tell me it's not someone who got away. Or worse, a case where he put away the wrong man.”

The Doctor shook his head. “No. Well, you are correct in that this man has killed before, though Alec never arrested anyone else in his place. Ailie McKinney was one of his other victims.”

“One?”

The Doctor nodded. “Gabriel is dead. This killer goes after couples, kills one while the other watches. Very unpleasant, this individual. Definitely must be found and stopped, but we're not agreed on the next course of action just yet.”

Ellie swallowed. “Damn. Now I'm not sure I want to go get the boys.”

“Might not just yet,” the Doctor said. “I am confident we can find this killer, even if he has, perhaps passed on since he killed Sylvie. Still, best not to draw children into the mix. Actually, Alec might have the right of it. We should probably go, set up our work elsewhere, not bring kids or anyone else into this mix.”

“Your granddaughter is well aware of what her father does for a living, and my boys know a bit of what it's like, too. Well, no, Fred's too young, but Tom does, especially after his best friend died,” Ellie said. “Wait, is it Sarah Jane you don't want involved? Why would you want to keep her out of this?”

The Doctor frowned. “Who said I said anything about—do I smell chips? Rose, you are absolutely amazing.”

“Figures,” Donna muttered as the Doctor bounded away from them. “Important questions to be answered, and he goes off in search of food. Bloody alien.”

Ellie nodded, deciding she was going to find his son instead.

* * *

“How did you know Ailie?” Miller asked as she entered the room.

Hardy finished shoving the papers inside the folder, not looking at her. “You were going to get your children.”

“Yeah, no, not when we may or may not be going back in time to hunt a killer,” Ellie said. “It was one thing looking for Danny's murderer when the boys were at home with Joe. Back then, I trusted him. I didn't know what he was. Now I have no one I trust with them, not really. I put up with Tom being with Lucy and Olly because I thought I had to, but I didn't. I should have gone and gotten him sooner. And Fred, he's so small he won't understand but that doesn't make this any better.”

“I didn't ask you to be involved in any of this,” Hardy told her. He hadn't, and he didn't want it. He needed to get away from her, needed distance to put his own feelings into perspective. He'd done that with Tess, and while it wasn't a perfect solution, it did help. “I don't want you involved. Just go away.”

“Not bloody likely. I am not leaving you to deal with a murder on your own. Just accept that I am going to be involved and stop fighting against that.”

“Why do you want any part of this?” Hardy demanded. “You could have this job if it mattered so damned much to you, but you haven't bothered to get your old one back. You're still punching a clock in bloody Devon when you do work, and for what? You're pissing your life away, and you want to blame me for everything that goes wrong when you're not doing a damned thing to change anything.”

She stared at him. “You're doing it again, you know. Lashing out because you're hurting. How well did you know this Ailie? Was it a case like Pippa and Lisa, where you got close only to have it all fall apart? You did recognize this killer's work, so you knew the case well, I'm assuming. Who was she?”

“Leave it alone,” Hardy said. “You're not a part of this. I don't even want my father involved, but I know I can't shake him. Bloody mental connection makes sure of that, but you? You I can avoid, and I will. You're not having any part in this, Miller.”

“Ailie,” Miller said, drawing out the word. “You said my name like that, almost. Back when I first worked with you and wanted you to call me 'Ellie.' You knew her well, didn't you?”

He glared at her. “I am not having this discussion with you.”

“Oh, my God,” Miller said, staring at him. “You weren't just the cop on her case, were you? You were the boyfriend, the other part of the couple. He killed her, and you saw it. All of it.”

“Miller—”

“I saw those pictures,” Miller whispered. “I don't care if you're a half human hybrid. How the hell are you still alive?”


	6. Time for Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy thinks about the answer to Miller's question and she gets a lot more after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a scene done for this, felt it was good, and then I realized it was so a chapter end, and maybe it should have been with the last chapter instead. Then I figured out how to fix that, but just as I got time to write on that, I got hit by a really bad migraine and had to shut off the electronics and crawl into bed. That delayed things, but I finally put it together.
> 
> And I might just get through that novel of angst that I mentioned there could be with Hardy's survival post what happened to Ailie, considering how well these memories worked their way in.

* * *

_He was going to die now. He knew it._

_He could almost accept that._

_He closed his eyes, and he was almost out when something jostled him. He didn't have anything left to fight with, but he didn't think he smelled Toothy. Toothy was so rank with alcohol he was impossible to miss. The leader, maybe. He'd seemed cleaner, almost clinically so, but what did Hardy know about any of that? He was dying. It was all over._

_“No, no, open your eyes,” a voice urged, one Hardy didn't think he knew. Foreign. What was with all the bloody tourists? “That's a bit better. Come on. Hold on, now. Ambulance is on its way. You just have to hold on a bit longer. Please. You can do that for me, can't you?”_

_Hardy figured he must be dreaming. “Ailie...”_

_“Just hold on. A little longer. Hold on.”_

_He was so tired he couldn't move, and he ached everywhere that wasn't throbbing or screaming in pain. He was done. He knew he was. Just like Ailie was gone, he was gone, and he wasn't even that upset about it. He hadn't saved her._

_He didn't deserve to be saved._

_“Have to stop this bleeding here,” the voice went on. “Can't have that. Wounds are way too deep. You shouldn't have been able to move at all, but then... superior physiology. That's us. That's how we are, and right now, I'm very glad of it, understand? Very, very glad.”_

_Hardy groaned, trying to push away the man away. He wasn't making sense, and that must be a hallucination, though he would have thought it would be Ailie he'd see, not some blurry figure that he'd taken for a motorist or something. No, why would one of them be out here in this place?_

_Had there been another man? He knew this wasn't the leader. That one had a different accent, and he was cruel. Everything about him was wrong. If he'd been there, pretending to save Hardy, he'd be doing it to keep hurting him._

_“Hold still. I didn't grab all the proper tools for this, even though I knew... Oh, but what is the point of trying to be rational in a crisis? I've always done it and always failed. Some things overcome even superior minds, and the idea of losing you now is one of them.”_

_Hardy didn't understand. “Who are you?”_

_“Ah, that's a tricky question, one you'll probably not believe the answer to, and then again, I've never been able to say my real name. I have another, and that one you should know. It's a promise, but if I tell you that, I'm possibly spoiling the future, and that would be devastating,” the man went on. “No, I can't tell you, seeing how important that future is to both of us.”_

_“You... make... no sense...”_

_“Ah, you've caught on to my devious scheme of keeping you awake by talking about things you won't understand until much, much later,” the other man said. “Good for you. Very clever.”_

_“You're insane.”_

_“The fact that you're lucid enough to make that determination is a good sign. I was worried when I heard the sound of your hearts. I suppose this explains a lot of what I learned later, this is when it starts to fail, though not just now. It'll get worse, but this almost did it in on its own.”_

_Hardy didn't know what the man was talking about. He couldn't keep this insanity straight, not when he was in this much pain, though he swore part of it felt better than before, even though he knew that the sociopath had made those cuts deep. He said so. He said it would scar if Hardy lived, not that he would._

_“I don't... What...”_

_“You don't have to understand all of this now. It'll be clearer later, if you even remember this part,” the other man went on. “Oh. No, no, no, now where is that blood coming from? Hold on, I've got to move you. I'm sorry, but I have to see your back.”_

_Hardy cried out in protest, but he couldn't stop the man from moving him. He was stuck, and it hurt, all over again, like the wounds were new. “Don't...”_

_“I've got to stop this bleeding,” the other man said. “I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry.”_

* * *

_Everything was dark, and he felt weighed down, almost like he was under water, but if he was under water, he should have needed to come up for air by now. This place was strange, the rules of the world didn't seem to exist here. He should not be able to think, but he could, though he kept running from what he saw even as he stood still._

_He couldn't get away from where he was, from where he had been. That basement. He could still feel it on him, the smell of death and the stink of those men, not just their drink but everything about them. They had blood on their hands._

_He had blood on his._

_He thought he heard his mother reading. She always had, since he was young, calling him her best audience and critic all in one. He'd just shook his head, but she told him she valued how he never hesitated to tell her if something was wrong with her story. He didn't see why, no one else appreciated it when he pointed out flaws, but his mother was biased anyway._

_She loved him because she was his mother. No one else gave a damn, especially not his father._

_He felt her hand as she brushed back his hair. “You'd hate what they did to it, even if it saved your life. It'll scar, and I'm sorry. I don't—a part of me is worried it wasn't even necessary and that's why you're in this coma. I wish Ailie were here. She could wake you. Or maybe our favorite mutt, what do you think?”_

_She sighed, and he wanted to answer her, but everything was so heavy and slow nothing seemed to work. He needed to move, but he couldn't seem to get even the smallest response from his body. He heard her turning pages, and he tried to reach her. He didn't want her to start again, not when Zygons had nothing to do with what he remembered, something that he had to believe was some kind of nightmare._

_He was waking up from it now. His mother would be there, and K-9, with some statistic about how much he'd slept or what alien had invaded his dreams. Sooner or later Ailie would come, teasing him, and she'd laugh if he admitted she'd scared him._

_He moaned as he tried to get up, forcing his eyes open. He blinked, trying to understand where he was. He knew it wasn't home. That place never looked so white or so clean._

_“Alec?”_

_He tried to move, shifting a little and feeling strange, full of pain and fatigue, his body stubbornly refusing to move. She put a hand on his arm, stopping him from another attempt.  
“Sweetheart, don't,” she said, taking his hand. “You'll pull your stitches and hurt yourself all over again. Look at me, please. That's it. You know who I am?”_

_Of course he bloody knew who she was. He wasn't an idiot, and neither was she. That was his mother, and he'd recognize her until the day he died. He couldn't forget her, and she should know that._

_“Aye.” His voice didn't sound right, more like he hadn't used it in years, rough and low, and he wondered what had happened to his throat. No, not those dreams. He didn't want them to be true._

_“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, cupping his cheek. “You had us so worried.”_

_Maybe that meant his last hope was true. All of it was just a nightmare. If they were worried, then maybe that meant she was still alive. “Ailie?”_

_“They buried her two days ago,” his mother answered, and while he wanted to be angry, to say she had to be lying, he'd known the truth, and he wouldn't have been any happier if she had told him Ailie was alive if she wasn't. “I'm sorry.”_

_His only friend was dead, and he'd been there. He'd seen it. He'd been unable to do anything to stop them, and now he was alive, but why? He didn't understand that. He should be dead. He knew that back before he tried to escape. That man, the sociopath, he'd wanted Hardy dead, and he'd done enough to where he should have been._

_Was that other foreigner a medic of some kind? Was that it?_

_Hardy went to sit up again, and all of the machines started making noise, almost like they were screaming in protest. His mother stopped him, gentle but firm as she kept him from pulling other monitors off. He wanted them all gone. He had to get out of here._

_“You shouldn't move, and you'll regret trying to walk on that ankle,” his mother told him, and he was aware now of a dull throb in it, but he didn't care. “Just stay still a minute, let me get your doctor.”_

_“No. Out of here. Now.”_

_“Alec—”_

_“No,” he said, refusing to stay here. She had to understand that. He wasn't going to lie here while they poked and prodded and told him things he already knew. He knew he shouldn't be alive. He knew that Ailie was the one that deserved it, and she was gone._

_He couldn't deal with that here. He had to go. Had to get out of here, get back home where no one would see it but his dog. K-9 wouldn't judge him. All the others did. All the time._

_“They had to operate on your brain,” his mother said, and Alec frowned at her. That wasn't right. He remembered getting hit in the head, but not that hard. He'd come around afterward, and if he'd been bleeding in his brain, he should never have made it as long as he did. “You can't go until they tell me you'll be all right. Let's just get your doctor, shall we?”_

_He didn't answer. He just wanted to get out of here._

* * *

“I wasn't her boyfriend.”

Ellie swallowed, still trying to come to terms with what she had just figured out. She'd stumbled face first into that revelation, and she knew she hadn't handled it well, but even if the guy involved in this had only been through half of what Sylvie had, he should be dead. Hardy was still here, still talking to her.

And debating semantics.

“What?”

“Ailie was my best friend,” Hardy corrected. He grimaced, slightly, still not looking at her. “Only friend. Most of the people in town hated me, but she... she was too nice.”

Ellie sat down, feeling sick again. When she'd realized what this actually was, what it meant, that Hardy had known Ailie, she'd gotten nauseous, but the raw grief in his voice even now, so many years after it happened, was enough to knock the wind out of her. “I don't understand.”

He turned away, going to the window. “I was there. I just... have a time traveler for a father.”

“Oh, God,” Ellie whispered. She didn't even know what to think about that. If Hardy's father wasn't a time traveling alien, he'd be dead by now. None of this would ever have happened. She wouldn't have known him, wouldn't have lost her promotion to him or found out that Joe, of all people, had killed Danny. Would anything in her life be the same if Hardy wasn't there?

She didn't know.

“I don't want your pity.”

She shook her head. “I wasn't—I take two seconds to try and process that and somehow I pity you? No. I just... I can't even begin—if you hadn't been there, if he hadn't gone back and saved you—I don't know. It's so... I can't wrap my head around that right now. Then I start to think about what you saw—”

“Don't.”

Like that was even possible. Hardy had watched his best friend die, and he'd never said anything. He'd carried that around for years, and Ellie doubted that most of the people he was close to knew. She didn't think he'd told his daughter, though his mother had to know. And Ellie hadn't known, and she was sort of his only friend, since he wouldn't call anyone in the Doctor's company a friend.

Damn, did Tess even know about this?

“Can you tell me about it?”

“You don't have to coddle me,” Hardy muttered, shaking his head. He drew in a breath and let it out. “I _can_ tell you. That doesn't mean I _will.”_

She put a hand to her head. “If you think you can work on this on your own with the Doctor and everyone else here, you're a fool. I never thought you were before, even when you were at your most irritating. So don't start now, please. You don't have to do this alone.”

“Miller, you're missing the point. I _want_ to,” Hardy told her. “You think I want all of them butting into this? No. Of course I don't.”

“Your father is like terminally curious, and everyone's pretty protective of you because of him. And Daisy,” Ellie said. She crossed over to his side. “I can't imagine what it was like for you, surviving that. I didn't handle it well when I figured it out. My mouth worked before my brain, but I'm willing to listen. You told me about Pippa. Tell me about Ailie. Please.”

He shook his head. “It's not that simple.”

“I didn't say it was,” Ellie told him. “Only that I can help—if you'll let me. What happened?”

Hardy put a hand on the window glass, looking out at the distance. She didn't think he was going to say anything, not at first, but then he took a breath and shivered slightly as he did speak. 

“I was walking her home. Someone spiked the punch at the dance, and she was tipsy. This car drove past us, and I didn't even think anything of it until it came back. No, it was a van. White, I think, don't remember much else about it. They asked if we needed help, but something felt wrong about them. I told them no, told her to run... She didn't make it very far. Neither of us did.”

Ellie swallowed. “How many of them were there?”

“Four.”

“Four?” Ellie repeated, feeling sick all over again. Four killers. Four of them working together, hidden for all this time? How could they even begin to fight something like that? One killer had done so much damage to this town.

“Only one of them survived that night. He's the only one we have to find.”


	7. Time for Possible Targets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talk of the case gets interrupted while a few new plans form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned itself a bit on me, as I was expecting to focus on the case and ended up dealing with stuff from the last story as well as needing to set a subplot/possible side story in motion. I am kind of thinking that what some characters end up doing should be separate, as that story seems like it would be lighter and wouldn't match this one's tone.

* * *

“Dad, you should have seen Jenny at the arcade,” Daisy said as she opened the door, walking in right at that wonderfully tense moment. Ellie was still trying to find her voice to ask him about what he'd just told her, but his daughter had to come in just as he finished with that particular admission.

Ellie supposed they could both use a break—she could see the toll this was taking on Hardy even though he wasn't looking at her, and she was bound to say something else stupid trying to make sense of what he'd told her—but she still thought that Daisy's timing was kind of lousy.

“I mean, she got us kicked out of the arcade, but it was still amazing. She can bend like no one I've ever seen,” Daisy went on, excitedly babbling. “She said she'd teach me and Chloe, but Chloe and I are both a bit worried we'd break if we tried it.”

“Ask your grandfather if he thinks your part Time Lord genetics can handle it first,” Hardy advised, sounding surprisingly normal all of a sudden.

She frowned, and then she crossed over to him, giving him a big, long hug. He stiffened, but after a moment, he relaxed, holding her close against him. He kissed the top of her head, and Ellie wondered how old Ailie had been when she died. If she was the same age as Daisy or that age was ahead of her, this could be _really_ bad. Sylvie was still in school, and so was Hardy's little girl.

“What's wrong, Dad?”

“Someone wants me to take a case, Daize,” he answered. “And it's not going to be an easy one. Two people died, but only one body was found.”

She frowned. “You really want to do it, then? I thought maybe you were done being a cop.”

He let her go, stepping back to look at her. “You know I am not that interested in all of this alien stuff. I was a cop, I liked being a cop, I was good at being a cop. I don't know how to be anything else.”

Daisy grimaced. “That's not true. You know lots of things. And not just alien things. You build Gran a supercomputer. You have lots of knowledge about those sorts of things. K-9 taught you a lot, and yeah, I suppose that's a little alien, it's not just alien. You could make things or change things. You are smart. You're part Time Lord. You can do anything you want to.”

“And being a cop is what I want,” Hardy said, and Ellie thought Daisy was disappointed to hear it. She wasn't sure, but it did seem like Daisy was hoping her father might branch out a little. Or maybe she really was hoping that he would take up this alien stuff instead.

“Is this a case I can help with?” Jenny asked, coming in the door. “Oh, and I have fish and chips for everyone. They're amazing. I can't believe I never had them before, especially since Rose said they're her favorite. Well, the chips, at least. She didn't say that about the fish.”

“Oh, bless,” Ellie said, reminded that she hadn't eaten in hours, even if Hardy had almost killed her appetite with his revelations. Not that she was going to ignore that, but she could do with a bit of fortification for the rest of what was coming, especially now that everyone was back and things were going to get more complicated. “I'm starving. Pass one of those over here.”

“You and your stomach, Miller,” Hardy grumbled. “I have stuff I need to do. You eat.”

Ellie watched him go, frowning. She wasn't the only one, since Daisy seemed rather upset by his departure. Ellie thought about going after him, but she figured that Jenny might feel insulted if she didn't actually eat the food she'd just asked for. Hardy and his past were going to have to wait.

* * *

_“You scared me.”_

_Sarah Jane sat down next to her son. This wasn't the first time she'd found her son by Ailie's grave. She thought that he came down here daily, as if he was punishing himself. She wouldn't be surprised about it, seeing as how he was always so quiet and withdrawn these days, either lost in his books on criminology or whatever project he needed to keep his hands busy when he couldn't keep his mind focused._

_She worried about him, but then she always did, even before he'd almost been ripped away from her. He was her only child, and more special than he knew, and he'd almost died for no reason at all. She didn't care for coincidence, and she didn't like knowing that it was nothing more than that leading those men to be on that road at the same time as her son and his best friend._

_And Ailie, poor Ailie, she was gone._

_“You knew where I'd be.”_

_Sarah Jane nodded. “That doesn't mean that I don't worry about you. You are still healing, Alec. I know you've made a quick recovery considering what you went through, but you should not be out here alone.”_

_“I'm not broken,” he said, though he didn't really sound like he believed that. He traced his fingers over Ailie's name again, shaking his head. “I'm alive. She isn't.”_

_“And that is not your fault,” Sarah Jane said, reaching over to touch his face. He pulled away from her, and she winced. She couldn't comfort him like that anymore. He didn't let her touch him. “Sweetheart, you didn't choose this. You didn't cause it. You did a nice thing by taking her to the dance like she wanted. You couldn't have known those men would be on the road, and they chose to hurt both of you. They could have killed you first. You couldn't change that decision, either, and I know you think you should have been able to free yourself and save her, but you couldn't. That's not something you should punish yourself for.”_

_He looked away from her. “You can't make it better with words.”_

_“They aren't just words,” Sarah reminded him. “They're facts, too. You can't deny all of them. You couldn't have known. Even now no one knows who those men were.”_

_That was a mistake to mention. “One of them is still out there.”_

_“I know,” Sarah said. “I worry sometimes he'll come after you again. I don't know what I'll do if he does. I can't lose you.”_

_He snorted. “You'd be fine. You have your career. You have K-9.”_

_“That is not the same, and don't you dare think it is. Alec, you are the best thing I have ever done. I know you don't believe that, but to me it is and always will be true,” she said, reaching out to him only to have him pull away again. “Please. Stop hurting yourself like this.”_

_He pushed himself up from the ground. “Leave me alone.”_

_“Alec—”_

_“I said, leave me alone.”_

* * *

“Everyone's downstairs eating.”

“Which does make me wonder why you're up here,” Alec said, and Rose grimaced, trying not to take his words too much to heart. She already knew that Alec could be a difficult man, and his natural reaction to being cornered was to lash out. At least she knew that much about her son. She didn't know if she'd be able to reach him, but she thought she owed it to everyone to try, especially under these circumstances.

“I'm here because I know what you did,” she said, and he frowned. “I just spent the afternoon with your daughter. Did you really think I wouldn't pick up on the fact that you retconned her and Ellie?”

He busied himself with his bag, shoving things inside it. “That is none of your business.”

“You're my son. Whether either of us likes that or not, it makes it my business,” she said, going over to him. She put her hand on his arm. “I told you—I remember Scotland. I know how you felt. I know how I felt, but that's an entirely different matter. You know that taking away their memories—that was wrong.”

“Miller didn't want that. She didn't want any of it, and neither of them needs to remember that time,” Alec said, pulling away from her. “Don't tell me I don't know that. Miller does not care for me. She is not interested in knowing how I feel. I don't even want to know how I feel. That was something I did not want. I still don't. And none of that matters now that I have a case to work on, so take your delusions about being my mother and get out.”

Rose winced. She knew, to him, Sarah Jane would always be his mother, and she didn't even come in a distant second. That didn't change things. “You know if this was you, you'd be angry. You'd be so angry that you'd never forgive Ellie if she'd done it. Or your father or your mother—Sarah Jane—or even your daughter.”

“And what the hell does it matter to you?” Alec demanded. “You may have somehow created me through whatever it was you did to yourself with the TARDIS and Bad Wolf, but that does not make you my mother or Daisy's grandmother. Stay out of this. It doesn't concern you. It's better if they don't know what I did. I know, and I accept the punishment for that. They don't have to.”

She frowned. “You thought, what, that they'd hate you if they knew that you killed the Family?”

“Go away. I don't have any interest in discussing anything with you. I am just getting my things so I can get out of here.”

“You can't leave. You just took a case. You said that.”

“I am not staying in Miller's house a minute longer than I have to, and you should understand why that is a bad idea. You've just been trying to lecture me about what I did, haven't you?”

“That's different. You're turning your back on support you need when you don't have to,” Rose said, confused. “You don't have to go, she's not asking you to, and she's going to help with your case, which would probably be easier if you were here. Where are you thinking of going, anyway? The TARDIS? You'd hate that. As large as it is, it's your father's home, and you've never seemed inclined to share it before now.”

“Quit assuming you know me or anything about what I want or need,” he snapped. “You don't. Leave it alone.”

“I can't do that,” Rose said. “For one, that's not how I work. For another, I don't think that's what you really want or need. Maybe it's you trying to punish yourself more, or maybe you think it will keep you safe from being hurt by someone, but that doesn't work, either. Your father could tell you that much, though I'm not sure you'd listen to him.”

Alec sighed. “Do you really want to help?”

“Yes.”

“Then take Daisy on that damned shopping trip you promised her. Make it an off-world trip.”

“What? No,” Rose said, knowing she couldn't pilot the TARDIS for that and that it would leave them on another world if anything went wrong here. The TARDIS needed to be where the Doctor was, and he wasn't leaving his son. She knew that much, even if she'd left him stuffing his face full of chips.

“You have to,” Alec said, turning toward her. “You say you care, but you knew what that damned fixed point was, what it cost, how someone else died in my place. No. If you want to help, you take my daughter and you get her far away from here because I _cannot_ lose her to that man like I lost Ailie. Do you understand that?”

Rose choked. “You're sure he's back?”

“He killed someone ten years ago. I suppose he could be dead by now, but I don't know, and I'm not risking Daisy on this. Miller's already made herself a part of it, but do you have any idea how much that goes against everything in me? I can't do this with her. She needs to go with you, too. She won't, but she should. I'd drug her and throw her in the TARDIS if I thought it would do any damn good.”

Rose swallowed. She didn't like the idea of this man who'd almost killed Alec out there, free to kill again, possibly going after someone he cared about or even him again. She nodded. “I'll do my best to talk Ellie into coming with us, and I'll take Daisy and the others. I don't like it, because I would rather stay and fight myself, but sometimes the real fight is keeping someone else out of the line of fire.”

He looked at her, and she thought he didn't believe her.

She shook her head. “No one would accept going off on a shopping trip if I didn't go. I have to go to sell it. And if I convince Jenny, she will drive the TARDIS, but that would strand all of the rest of you, which isn't the best of plans, either.”

“Daisy's not seventeen yet, but she's too much like her namesake. He killed that girl Sylvie because she was like Ailie. My daughter can't be anywhere near this place or me. Or anywhere on Earth where he can get to her.”

“I understand that,” she said. “Still... you will have to tell your father what you're doing and why. I don't think he'll object, but he won't let you do it without his knowledge, no matter how much the TARDIS likes you.”

Alec nodded. “I'll talk to him.”

* * *

“I want to send Daisy off-world.”

“Of course you do,” the Doctor said, not looking at his son as he reached for another chip. Rose had gotten him more than any of the others, which was good because he was feeling particularly ravenous right now. He supposed that was all the nervous energy he was working up fretting over his son and this case. That also explained why he'd chosen to enjoy his excess outside while the others had gathered indoors. “I completely agree.”

“You do?”

The Doctor nodded, waving a chip around as he spoke. “One, she's wanted that shopping trip for months now, and I find them so tedious unless I have something I actually need to buy. Two, I haven't forgotten how we noted the similarities between Sylvie and Ailie and the possibility of her being targeted specifically to taunt you. What better choice could he have now than your own daughter, who is almost Ailie's age and very like her, minus the curls? No, it would be foolish on his part _not_ to go after your daughter, as losing her would cause you the most pain, and he would want you to suffer. Therefore, we will remove her from the equation in a way he can't counter. Sending her somewhere else for safety would only leave her open to attack, but I very much doubt that your attacker has any idea of your true parentage or he would never have chosen you in the first place. And while you were surprisingly resilient back then, I doubt he knows it had anything to do with you being a Time demi-Lord or you reflexively putting yourself in and out of healing comas to help cope with the damage.”

“Unless he heard you wittering on when you saved me and realized you were an alien.”

The Doctor frowned. “Oh, I never said that. I said a lot of stuff, but never that I was a Time Lord or that you were. I didn't even tell you I was your father. So I very much doubt he could have gotten anything from that conversation that would allow him to know anything about the rest of this. Plus you very stubbornly avoided all things alien for years afterward, which makes the connection even less likely, despite your mother's novels.”

“She never actually wrote about you,” Alec told him. “I don't know if she was afraid that make us a target because she admitted to knowing about you or if she thought maybe I'd figure it out. All I know is that her stories about you were never in the books. She did talk about you, but never called you the Doctor or mentioned you were a Time Lord. Never gave much detail at all.”

“I think you're right, in part, that it was about keeping you from knowing what you were. Remember, you were a great secret for years. Only she knew for most of your life, and that meant that she couldn't let you begin to suspect that your father was alien, even if you had your doubts about Stuart Hardy.”

“Me not being his son biologically explains a lot about him,” Alec agreed. “Do you trust Jenny to pilot the TARDIS?”

“Oi, don't make me play favorites,” the Doctor said, and Alec rolled his eyes. “Yes, I do. She's an excellent study, and besides which, all you'd have to do is have a little chat with her yourself to ensure that the destination was the right one, safe and secure. She's very fond of you, my ship, and I think that owes a lot to you being... well, part hers, in a sense.”

“Don't mention that to anyone else,” Alec said, looking rather unsettled by the idea.

“No, of course not,” the Doctor said, pausing to munch down another chip. He finished it and looked at his son. “What about Ellie?”

“I'd rather she go with, too, but I don't think Miller will leave this alone. She's not... I didn't want to tell her anything. I knew how she got with Sandbrook, and now it's happening again. She's already involved, and she doesn't quit.”

“Well... there are ways around that,” the Doctor admitted. “As you already know.”

“Rose already tried to lecture me about that, and I don't need it from you.”

The Doctor pointed a chip at him. “You have a few very gray areas in your moral compass, and we need to work on that. You've made most of those choices to protect others, but that doesn't always make them right. I can understand the Daleks, the Family, those men who attacked you, but stealing memories? That's diving into dangerous waters, ones you might not come back from. One downside to being a Time Lord is just that—we have huge egos. God complexes. In the end, those flaws of my people were so much I used the Moment to stop them. And I live in fear of that fate. Rose and Bad Wolf created you to save me from that. I don't want to see you do that to yourself. You made that decision without consulting either of them. You put yourself in as judge and jury, as it were, and that is somewhere even Time Lords shouldn't be.”

“And how much did Rose suffer, loving you while you kept your distance and pushed her away? You think it's better if Miller remembers any of that? It isn't, and if Daisy did, she'd want me to do something about it. I won't. It's not what she wants.”

“People can surprise you,” the Doctor said. “And you're mistaking my need for distance for a lack of feeling. I felt plenty for Rose, still do, and she will always be special to me because she healed me from the Time War. That doesn't mean I wasn't rubbish at showing her and didn't balk and run from the idea of being honest about those emotions. I told her once that the curse of the Time Lords was watching all of you wither and decay. Human lives are so short compared to mine, which can last centuries in each body, and I still have regenerations left. A part of me didn't want to accept you as your human side could well mean losing you in another thirty years, but you've proved to me that you're worth that pain. So is Jenny. And Daisy.”

“Miller is only human,” Alec reminded him, and the Doctor found himself without a response to that.


	8. Time for Awkward Arrivals and Departures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan is set into motion, someone else stops in for a visit, and things get awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I ended up with a ten hour shift, so even though I started this chapter yesterday, I made almost no progress with it at first. And again, my job robbed me of my sense of ability to do anything, since I feel like such a major screw up and would rather hide than ever go back again.
> 
> I guess I'll post a chapter instead and hope I feel more up to working after some sleep.

* * *

“You want me to go shopping,” Ellie repeated, staring at the women around her in disbelief. “On an alien planet.”

“You sound a bit like me,” Donna observed, amused. “Only if you think the shopping's good in Paris, wait until you've been to New Paris.”

Ellie shook her head. She didn't know why Rose seemed to be egging the others on to this when she didn't seem all that keen on it before, and while it was nice they'd invited Beth and Chloe along, Ellie didn't feel right about going. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“You're staying because of Dad's case? Really?” Daisy asked, and her disappointment almost had Ellie changing her mind. She hadn't realized how much it mattered to the girl that she come along. They weren't that close, though she supposed it might seem a little unfair that Chloe got to have Beth along and they weren't about to bring Tess into this.  
God, that would be a disaster, wouldn't it? Hardy's ex finding out he was half-alien and so was their daughter? She'd use that against him for sure.

“I'm sorry, Daisy,” Ellie told her, “but I can't let a murderer go free just so I can shop. Besides, I'm not very good at being fashionable.”

She noticed no one really disagreed with that, and while it proved her point, it didn't feel great.

“It's not necessarily about fashion,” Beth said, and Ellie nodded. She knew part of it was a girl's night out sort of thing, and she knew that she was missing out on a chance to get closer to the other women or just get pampered, but she wasn't interested in that, and how could she leave Hardy alone when his best friend's killer could be after him again?

It was good Daisy was going off world. She'd be safe from this killer, and even if something did happen while they were gone, Rose and Jenny would be there along with Donna and Beth, so she should be all right.

“Maybe you should take your gran,” Ellie suggested, wondering if that would help at all. She didn't know what Sarah Jane was up to these days, but she knew that Daisy and her gran were close.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said, clapping his hands together like Ellie had won some kind of prize. She didn't even remember him coming into the room, but then her mind had been torn between how the hell was only one of those men alive to shopping on an alien planet what would that be like and why was she so damned worried about Hardy? 

Donna frowned at the Doctor. “I thought you didn't want—”

“Of course I think Sarah deserves the trip,” the Doctor said. “Don't you agree, Alec? It's been a long time since your mother was off-world, but this is a nice, safe trip, and she should be a part of it.” 

Hardy nodded. “I'll keep K-9 for her while she's gone.”

“Figures you want the dog,” Ellie grumbled, since she was well aware that he'd been avoiding her since she found out about the four killers.

“Miller, no one is forcing you to stay. Go. Go on and enjoy yourself.”

“You just want me gone.”

“Aye.”

She tried not to be hurt by that. It wasn't like she didn't know his MO by now. He lashed out when he was hurting, and she knew having Ailie's killer resurface hurt him deeply, more deeply than Sandbrook, and that had almost killed him.

“Ha. Like anyone trusts the two of you to handle a case on your own. You need someone to supervise you, keep you in line,” Donna said, getting some nods from the others. “No, I suppose Ellie has it right. She can watch over you two, make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Are you sure you don't want to come with us?” Rose asked. “I know them. Keeping either one of them out of trouble is a full time job, and you'll have them both.”

Ellie grimaced. Maybe she didn't want to do this, but she couldn't leave Hardy on his own with nothing but a tin dog for help. “No, I'll go next time. Mr. Rayes, he knows me and expects me to work on it. I think it's better if I do. Still, you should stop and get Sarah Jane if she's willing.”

“Excellent idea, Ellie, _molto bene,”_ the Doctor said. “I'll go right now.”

“What?”

“Oh, not to worry, Jenny,” the Doctor said. “This is not about your driving skills. I just... am a little nostalgic today. It's been a long time since it was just me, Sarah, and K-9 in the TARDIS.”

A few people in the room actually seemed to buy that, but Ellie had a feeling that the Doctor was worried she'd be in the middle of some crisis and didn't want anyone else being delayed in taking care of it. And his eagerness to send Sarah Jane off-world was a red flag in of itself.

“Right,” the Doctor said. “I'll be back in no time at all.”

“Why is it no one believes that?”

“Because we know him too well.”

* * *

“As promised, Sarah Jane Smith,” the Doctor said, announcing their arrival. She gave him a look, and he smiled at her. She didn't know why he was making a production of it—certainly she expected he might have been much more of a nuisance if she'd been up to anything, but fortunately for her, she'd just wrapped up her latest crisis and sent Luke back to university. Not that she would have minded if her other son interacted with the Doctor, but she didn't need him bringing another invasion down on her and she did want to see Alec after Ellie's last called.

“Gran,” Daisy said, running toward her and giving her a big hug. She held on tight, glad to see her granddaughter was well. “I missed you.”

“Oh, it's good to see you, too, sweetheart,” Sarah told her. She looked over to see Alec standing at the back of the room. “How was Scotland?”

“Terrible, as usual,” Alec answered, and Ellie looked over at him with a frown.

“When did you go to Scotland? Was that part of that trip you took with the Doctor and the Aeturn?”

“Figures he'd leave that out of the story,” Daisy said, stepping out of the hug and eying her father. “He hates Scotland.”

Sarah Jane frowned, looking at her son again. He folded his arms over his chest, and she understood. She was not pleased. She knew why Alec would have done it, but that didn't make it right. She'd had a bit of a sense of how her son might feel about Ellie, but she hadn't pushed or tried to confirm anything since that had backfired on her in the past.

“Luke said I should make sure you had recovered from your run in with the Phomn,” Alec said, and she grimaced. He had her there. She didn't want to explain any of her encounter with the Phomn, no more than he wanted to explain what he must have done to Ellie and Daisy.

“It was nothing,” she said. “Are you going to keep lurking over there or do I get a hug?”

Alec rolled his eyes before crossing over to her. She pulled him close, holding on tight. “We should talk, and don't think that you can get away with not saying anything just because you brought up the Phomn.”

“I know you too well for that,” he said. “We can go for a walk, though I think they're eager to start on their trip. Daisy's all packed, and they've been waiting for you.”

“A few minutes won't hurt.”

“I've already had two lectures,” he warned her, and she looked over to the Doctor and Rose. “Aye. You give a third, and all bets are off. Especially as I know what you did with the Phomn.”

She grimaced. “Come on, then. Indulge a mother's worry for a bit.”

He walked with her out into the field behind the houses, putting distance between them and the others before he said anything. She let him have his silence, knowing how little he'd want to discuss something like this in front of anyone else, especially after already having the conversation twice.

“I wasn't hurt,” Sarah Jane told him. “Luke worries. I think he's afraid I'm getting too old for this sort of thing, and I suppose I am, but I'd never let age stop me if I thought I could make a difference. That goes against everything I am.”

“Aye, that I know well,” Alec agreed. Her oldest understood that about her, whereas Luke didn't seem to understand it. He hadn't known her as long, of course, and he hadn't grown up with a mother who sometimes put herself and her son in danger without thinking the consequences through, at least not as much as she should have. She'd never knowingly put Alec in harm's way, but she had gone after stories she shouldn't have that came home to roost.

“I'm a bit surprised at you, though,” she went on. “After what the Vroeyth did to you, I can't see how you would ever violate someone's mind like that.”

“I didn't,” he said, stopping to face her. “I didn't go into their heads. I gave them a pill so they'd forget. That's not the same thing.”

“It's still a violation.”

He turned away again. “Miller could not stop talking about how horrible it was being married to me. Even though it wasn't real, even when she was supposed to be playing along, she couldn't stand it. She doesn't want that memory. And Daisy... I killed them. The Family. The Doctor had rigged their ship so it would explode. He gave them a warning, told them to get out. I sealed the door on them.”

Sarah Jane winced. “I assume you had a reason for that?”

“I don't know if I did it because they'd still have hunted us even after that. I don't know if I thought I was sparing him or maybe them. He'd have done it—that whole event horizon of a black hole kind of punishment. That's what Harkness said he did, and maybe I spared them that. They didn't wither out and die and they weren't imprisoned for eternity. I suppose that's a small mercy, though I don't even know anymore.”

She circled around him, putting her hands on his face. “Tell me, do you think you're losing yourself to this? Like your sense of identity is gone now that your parentage has been revealed?”

He sighed. “A bit. I was a cop. I understood that. It's about the only way I've ever interacted successfully with humans. I... I can't get that back now, even with people offering me cases, and Daisy... I can tell she wants me to chase this life the Doctor has, but that's never been me. Only it keeps getting forced on me, over and over. We were just there for Joe Miller's plea. I shouldn't have been back in the past dealing with aliens. That's not me, damn it.”

“Somehow, you have to find a way to balance both sides of your life and your nature, because you are not fully human and you never have been. You're a bit outside of that, even as much as you're still a part of this place, but until you can reconcile the two halves of yourself, you won't be at peace,” she said, aching for him. “And I'm sorry. I don't know how to make that any easier for you. I probably made things worse, hiding the truth for so long.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn't have believed you or wanted to, even when my heart was failing. I... I actually don't mind him. I... He's my father. I'm fine with that. It's the other things that go with it that I don't want and can't get away from. Even now... I got a case, and everyone assumed that I'd just hop in the TARDIS, go back in time, and find the killer that way. What kind of bullshit is that? No one else gets that, so how is that justice?”

“It isn't,” Sarah agreed. “Not unless everyone had that opportunity, and they don't. Even you only have it in a very limited sense because you can't always guarantee your father will be here to take you to the past. You have to do this the way you know, the one that takes work and dedication, and you have that. Don't lose sight of what you do know.”  
He nodded, and she embraced him, knowing he might actually want that right now.

“You are going to have to tell them eventually, though, and that is going to be so much worse because of what you did.”

“Aye, but maybe by then I'll have... I wasn't supposed to feel anything for her. She was just this annoying cheery DS who didn't know enough about murders, but somehow... she's more. I don't like it. It wasn't... I didn't plan... If I hadn't gone to bloody Scotland with them—”

“You'd have tried to deny it for the rest of your life,” Sarah finished, well aware of her son's tendencies when it came to emotions. Only with Daisy was he truly open, and yet he kept so much from her that it didn't make sense to say that. Still, after Ailie and Tess, Sarah understood why he was so guarded. She didn't like it, but she understood it.

“I need you to go on this trip,” he said, and she frowned. “I suppose telling you not to ask wouldn't do any good, would it?”

“No. You're too much like me in that respect, I think.”

He snorted. He looked away, gathering himself together for what he was about to say. “Ailie's killer may have resurfaced. At least... he killed another couple ten years ago. I think he may have done it to get my attention, and if he did... I can't have him coming after you or Daisy. I know you think—”

“You honestly think I could leave you after you told me that?”

“You _have_ to,” he insisted. “I can't find him if I'm worried about you, and if you pull out, Daisy will pull out. She's... she's almost the same age. She's got red hair like Ailie, she's smart and funny and sweet just like Ailie was... Hell, I named her after her, didn't I? It was like putting a damned bulls-eye on my daughter, giving her that connection. I _can't_ lose her. You know I can't. And I can't lose you. Don't even start on Rose. That's not the same and never will be. Go with Daisy. Keep her safe. _Please.”_

Sarah nodded. She didn't like this, either, but she couldn't deny her son, not when he pleaded with her. She would go, but not before she had some very strong words with his father.

* * *

The Doctor pulled on his ear, again, wishing he'd had the sense to find ear plugs before Sarah Jane set into him. Not that she didn't have some very valid points, but he didn't care to have his ear burn quite so much, and it wasn't like he wasn't planning on being very careful with his son as this thing progressed. That was why he insisted on having K-9 with them since they could use a good guard dog while the others were gone. And a computer.

“I think everyone else is inside,” the Doctor told Rose, who nodded, chewing on her lip as she watched Daisy try to persuade Ellie again to go with them. He knew that she wouldn't, though he knew it would be in some ways easier for Alec if she did.

And harder, too.

“You are still planning to go, aren't you?” the Doctor asked, and she looked at him with a bit of a frown. “It's just that you're being very pensive, and I'm starting to worry that you know something from Bad Wolf that I don't. If I'm about to lose Alec now, I don't—”

“I can't see his timeline any more than you can,” she said. “It's too tangled. He's interwoven through time in so many ways, and it's hard to be sure what is true, will be true, or is just a possibility. And I don't have it all in my head, either, just bits and pieces.”

“I'm not about to lose you or any of the others by sending you away, am I?”

She shook her head. “No, I think this is the right choice to make to protect Daisy.”

He swore. “You can see a timeline where she dies if she stays, can't you?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Like you haven't. Just as you saw one for Sarah Jane. You knew same as Alec did that anyone close to him was in danger, and more so a woman in his life. We should do something to protect Tess, even if she's his ex-wife, but I don't know what we can do without revealing all of this to her, and that would not go over well.”

The Doctor nodded. “I know. I'm almost certain Alec would lose custody of his daughter, even if he doesn't officially have it now. No, we can't have that. I think we'll need other methods for her, but knowing what she did to Alec... I think I know the right man for the job.”

“Jack? You know that's only going to make Alec hate him more.”

“Only if he takes it further than flirting, which I suppose he might, but he also might not, given his strange loyalty to me and my family,” the Doctor said. “Besides, it's a relatively simple way to keep her safe without any alien revelations. Or even this case, since I'm almost certain—well, I am as certain as I can be without accessing my son's memories—that Alec never told her about Ailie.”

Rose frowned. Then she shook her head. “Well, I should go. They'll think it's strange if I don't, and I won't risk Daisy even if I would rather be here.”

“I know. Sarah Jane made the same choice,” the Doctor said. Then he grimaced. “Which is not to say that she's somehow more maternal than—well, no, I suppose she is, but then you haven't had much of a chance and she's had decades and—sorry, that was rude, wasn't it?”

Rose just shook her head, giving his hand a squeeze before starting for the TARDIS. He pulled her back and almost did something he probably shouldn't, but he touched her cheek instead.

“Be careful.”

“Same to you,” she said with a slight smile before leaning over to kiss his cheek. 

He touched his hand to the spot, watching her go and wishing he understood exactly where they were now that she was back and not dead. Things were even more complicated than before she died, and he didn't know what to do about any of it.

He'd lost her, and he still didn't know how to cope with that or what he'd do if they were ever to be like it was before. Everything shifted after the Year that Never Was, and even a bit before that, probably following the Family of Blood, if he was honest about it, but they were different again.

And he, as usual, felt the need to run rather than deal with them, leading him right to his son's troubles instead of his own.

* * *

“You sure sending them away was the best choice?” Miller asked. Hardy didn't look at her. He should have shoved her in the TARDIS, too, but he hadn't done it. She would have asked to go back, and the whole thing would have been ruined.

“Only choice,” Hardy said. “He would have gone after Daisy. I doomed her from the day I gave her that name. Shouldn't have, but I did.”

Miller frowned. “What's wrong with Daisy? Lots of girls get named Daisy. It's in the top hundred most popular names for baby girls.”

He looked at her. “How do you know that? Why do you know that?”

“When we had Fred, we didn't know he was going to be a boy at first, so you know, we looked at a few girl names along the way. I liked Daisy, but Joe was set on Amelia, which I thought was a bad choice since it was the most popular one, and you don't want to have the same name as everyone else. It's no good. Then they're always calling out your full name or expecting you to use a nickname.”

He shook his head, but he'd already started down this path, so he had little choice. “Ailie's parents must not have given it much thought, since they named her Ailie Daisy McKinney.”

“Oh,” Miller said, wincing.

“He'd kill her,” Hardy said. “If he's still alive, he'd kill her, but he'd make me watch as he did it, just like he did back then, like he must have done with Gabriel and Sylvie. Or my mother, if she stuck around.”

“What about Tess?”

Hardy grimaced. He should have thought of that, but he hadn't. “I guess I'd better warn her.”

“Does she know?” Miller asked. “About Ailie, I mean.”

“No.”

“Christ, Hardy, you were married to that woman for fifteen years and you never once told her what happened to you?”

He glared at her. “I could have told her I had a robotic dog and buried aliens in my yard, too. She'd have thought I was barmy. And no, I didn't tell her. There were things Tess didn't need to know, and Ailie was one of those things. She'd have never let me—it wouldn't have been about the case with her. She'd have made too much of that assumption you made.”

“About you being the boyfriend?”

Hardy nodded. “It... it wasn't like that with us.”

“Did you ever want it to be?”

He lowered his head. “I think everyone assumed she was either in love with me or fixing to get our family's land by putting up with me. I don't... I never wanted to be in love with anyone, Miller. Not then and not now.”


	9. Time for Complaints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy, Ellie, and the Doctor decide on a few things regarding the investigation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had written most of the Doctor's scene and it was okay, but somehow not enough to get me past where I was. I know part of what is coming, but I haven't been able to bridge the gaps, and it took a while to get back to this to be able to write anything on it. I ended up adding complications I didn't think of before, but it's good to examine other angles I'd never considered before, and this is a bit... humorous, which may just be the late hour and weird sleep thanks to migraine talking.

* * *

“You know, that's kind of a horrible thought to have about your wife,” Ellie said, and Hardy looked back at her, frowning. He didn't seem to understand why she was saying that, which was a bit odd, even for him with as terrible with people as she knew he was. “Even if she did cheat on you.”

“What?”

“You just said you never wanted to be in love,” Ellie reminded him. “You were, though, with Tess. You married her, would probably have stayed married to her if she hadn't cheated on you. Only you're telling me you'd rather never have been in love at all, never felt it.”

“Are you going to claim you don't regret Joe?” Hardy countered. He shook his head. “All love ever seems to be is a mistake, one that causes everyone a lot of pain. I remember when I was younger, listening to my parents bicker, over and over again. He supposedly loved her, and she always insists there was a man worth loving in him, at least at first, but it didn't take long for them to argue constantly. She said it was because she couldn't love him enough.”

“And you don't believe that.”

Hardy shrugged. “If you're asking me if I think she was in love with the Doctor when she traveled with him... I don't know, nor do I think I want to, seeing as that relationship is warped by time and changing faces. Her being in love with him now would be more than a little... unsettling.”

Ellie winced. That was a thought she didn't need, ever. “Then this thing with her husband was... what, about you?”

Hardy nodded. “Supposedly he couldn't stand sharing her with others. I don't know if he would have reacted the same if they'd had any children together, but the fact that I wasn't his... He knew, I didn't, but he always resented me all the same. He hated me.”

Ellie nodded. She'd gathered that much already. Hardy's relationship with his stepfather was far from pleasant, but at least now he had his biological father in his life, and as complicated as that was, she could tell the Doctor genuinely cared about him.

“Where was he when this happened?”

Hardy frowned. “What, you think my father—my mother's husband—was somehow involved? Miller, that's a bit much. I know he disliked me, and he seemed glad to travel on business as often as possible, but while I might have thought he'd been cheating on my mother, I never thought he had anything to do with this. No. No one who knew Ailie could do that to her. Even the people who disliked everyone liked her. She... she was one of those people you couldn't stay mad at even if you tried. The worst she got was a bit of... rumors and teasing because of our friendship.”

Ellie shook her head. “Lord, you're paranoid. I was just wondering where he was when it happened, and not for any evil reason, but because I know your mother knows—that's part of why the Doctor was so happy to send her off in a hurry—but you didn't even mention him.”

“He was out of town, as usual,” Hardy said. “The last few years I was there, he was gone more and more, but I wanted that, hating him as much as I did. Good grief, Miller, is that thought stuck in your head now? I swear I can see the wheels turning.”

“Well, you brought it up, but if he was traveling as often as you say—”

“You honestly think he hated me enough to pay four men to abduct me and kill me? No, as much as I might even think I'd want to blame him for it, it doesn't fit. He did hate me, but he liked Ailie, and he'd never be a part of that. And if they'd been hired, at least one of them would have mentioned money. They all seemed like they did it for fun.”

She winced. “That's genuinely horrifying, them thinking that this sort of thing is fun.”

“Aye,” Hardy agreed. He shook his head. “There's something that goes wrong with them, Miller, people like that. Compasses break. These ones... they were all broken. Only one of them seemed to have any kind of... remorse or comprehension of what he'd done. Ailie's body terrified him.”

She shook her head. “That's not the same thing, but that does bring me back to something I wanted to ask you earlier... how is it there's only one of them we have to worry about?”

* * *

“Perimeter sensor grid established, Master,” K-9 reported, and the Doctor smiled at him.

“Brilliant,” he said, grinning. “I have missed you, K-9, though I am glad you were of such great assistance to my family in the years since we parted company. Not that I haven't spent time with you since then, but it's complicated. Timey-wimey and all that.”

“Affirmative.”

The Doctor gave the dog an affectionate pat on the head. They should be protected against any possible intruders, since he was not about to let the monster who'd tried to kill his son before anywhere near Alec again. He could have made it very simple, going back in time and capturing him, but that would have meant crossing his own timeline—well, no, there was the day Sylvie and Gabriel died, but that was also complicated as it was ten years in the past and stopping that man then could affect the time stream in ways the Doctor had no way of knowing, since he didn't know who the man was.

He crossed over to join Alec and Ellie, a bit concerned that having her here was just as dangerous, since even a friend was at risk from this killer. He would want anyone he could kill in front of Alec, and she had two sons to worry about.

Oh, they should all have left in the TARDIS.

The Doctor's hearing was good enough to catch what his son said about his ex-wife, confirming his own suspicions on that matter. He wasn't surprised. He did think that Ellie knew Alec better than anyone except Sarah Jane, as the man had a habit of hiding things and keeping people at a distance.

Rose would call that a family trait. Or at least she'd say it was familiar in a very knowing tone.

“K-9 is monitoring in case of any threat,” the Doctor reported, interrupting the conversation when it delved into what Alec had been forced to do that night. Not that it could be avoided forever, but he knew the guilt his son felt and wanted to spare him that conversation for a bit longer. “So... what are you thinking is your next step?”

“Our next step?” Ellie asked. “Why aren't you including yourself in that?”

“Oh, I am, but in this instance, I'm deferring to the expert,” the Doctor said, smiling at his son. “Normally, I just blunder in until I find something, and I have a TARDIS, so if I was to do this on my own, I'd have jumped to the past as we discussed. I'd have found something back then, and even if I didn't stop the killer back then, I'd have something I could use to track him. Right now, I don't.”

Ellie nodded, though he thought she still seemed a bit suspicious. He shrugged. He was letting his son handle this one, at least in part. He was not about to leave anyone's safety up to chance, not when he was as worried that this man would come after Alec. His son was too important to be lost now, even having Jenny in his life would not replace the man that he had come to know and value, and not just because he was part Time Lord.

“We need access to the original case files and the evidence to test for forensics,” Alec said. He eyed K-9, and the Doctor knew they had their forensic expert right here, if his son was willing to use him.

“We could always have someone else confirm those tests of yours later if you're worried about doing this with your outdated justice system,” the Doctor said, and Ellie gave him a look. “Time Lord. I've seen many improvements to that sort of thing over the years, and not all of them lead to totalitarianism.”

“I don't think I want to know what your people considered justice,” Ellie grumbled, and the Doctor could only shrug at that. She was rather right about that, especially when he thought about his people during the Time War.

“Perhaps not, but we don't need to discuss that,” the Doctor said. “We're not dealing with their definition of justice, only our own, and while that can lead to a few unfortunate habits and possible errors in judgment, we still have a framework to work with, the legal system you have both been a part of, and we can use that as guidelines.”

“Guidelines,” she repeated. “Okay, fine. How do we get the original file? Because you're not on active duty, I'm not in a position to get it, and I'm not sure anyone would give it to us as private citizens.”

“We have all the authority we need right here,” the Doctor said, taking out his psychic paper. “This will get us anything we need.”

Ellie looked at him. “That's blank paper. Even for you, that's a bit weird.”

“Ah,” the Doctor said, holding up a finger. He closed and reopened the billfold, showing her again. “How's that for documentation?”

“You're the best rumba dancer in three galaxies. Right, _that_ qualification is going to get you everything we need for this case,” Ellie grumbled, but Alec laughed, and that was rather priceless, the Doctor knew, and he couldn't help smiling as he looked at his son.

“So, we're agreed, then. _Allons-y.”_

* * *

“Ugh, I hate shimmer,” the Doctor grumbled as he went forward. “Give me a good hologram over that any day. Programmed right into the neural cortex.”

“That sounds wrong, and I don't even know what you mean,” Miller said, and Hardy shook his head, finding his father's antics more than their usual level of annoying. 

He knew that was stress. The idea of Ailie's killer being out there—not one he hadn't been living with for years, but it was different knowing for sure that the bastard had killed someone else and wasn't as invisible as he'd seemed to be for so long. Hardy had almost been convinced that man was dead after so many years of seeming silence. He hadn't found other killings or crimes to tie to him, and it had looked like it was over.

It wasn't.

“He's talking about a hologram that projects directly into the mind,” Hardy explained. “And personally, I don't see how it is any better than shimmer.”

“That's because it's not nearly as unpleasant for the user,” the Doctor said. “And because I don't have as many issues as you do with mental entanglements. Someday, we really must address what the Vroeyth did to your mind. That lingers far too much, and I fear its scars have not healed in any meaningful way, which you will find is a very great source of discomfort to a telepath, even a demi-Lord. Mental scars can have far reaching consequences.”

“I'm aware of that,” Hardy said. So far he was grateful that Daisy's humanity diluted her abilities enough to where she got very little from him because he knew if she'd seen inside his mind, she'd hate him, father or not.

“I thought you were just going to use a perception filter to get around the Doctor looking like you,” Miller said with a frown. “Why are you doing shimmer and debating over holograms?”

“Because...” the Doctor faltered. “Well, because we gave the only one I had to Alec.”

“What?” Miller demanded. “In all that time you've bounced around the universe, you haven't once found more?”

“I have,” the Doctor said. “I just... left them in the TARDIS. I left a lot in the TARDIS, point of fact, so we're down to one robotic dog, my sonic screwdriver, and whatever random kit I happen to have in my pockets.”

“Oh, that's wonderful,” Miller muttered, looking him over. “And what is that, exactly? Two pieces of lint?”

Hardy almost laughed at that, and his father grinned at the same time. “Miller, what's the first thing you notice about the TARDIS?”

“That it's blue. A big blue box.”

“Fine, the second.”

“It's bigger on the in... side,” Miller said, finishing the last word slowly. “Are you saying you've done that to your pockets, too?”

“Yup,” the Doctor said, practically bouncing with pride. “Extremely useful, too. I'm always forgetting what I put in them, but I never seem to run out of interesting things and ones that can help us in unpleasant situations. It also makes it very hard for them to take my screwdriver.”

“You can do that sort of thing to anything?”

“Don't get any ideas,” Hardy warned her. “You're already forgetting Fred's biscuits in your purse with an alarming frequency.”

She frowned. “You noticed that?”

“Last week you offered me one that looked like it had been there since Tom was a wee bairn,” Hardy said, and she continued to frown. “Worse was when you ate it.”

“Hmm,” the Doctor said. “That does seem a bit dangerous. Remind me to check my pockets for any Dalaxian jam. It does strange things when it spoils.”

“Being around you just gets more insane,” Miller said, and the Doctor frowned, though her words were actually for Hardy, and he knew it. “Well, let's go, then. We need to get those files, otherwise we've got nothing.”

“Oh, we have plenty,” the Doctor disagreed. “The trouble is, we don't know what to do with it just yet. We will, though, in time. I just hope when we do, it's not too late.”


	10. Time for Searches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie, Hardy, and the Doctor go hunting for a crime scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish it was easier to get to where this story was going. I know where things need to go, but getting them there is always harder than it seems when I get started, especially since this story had such a different premise when I first envisioned it. Maybe I waited too long to start this one, though I hope not.

* * *

“I would have thought the case would be more local,” Ellie mused, and Hardy looked over at her. She shrugged, almost closing the folder she was reading over. Alan's files weren't the same as having the official files, though someone had given him a lot more than most civilians would have. Still, it was nagging at her, that sense that something didn't quite add up here.

“And I assumed it wasn't,” the Doctor said. She gave him a look, frowning. “Well, if it was local, then one or both of you would already have known about the case, wouldn't you? And since you didn't, he still had to tell you what it was, so it made sense it wasn't local.”

Hardy looked at his father. “I think what Miller is getting at is that she's not sure how Alan Rayes knew to look for me—us—if he's not that local. Danny Latimer's death made a few papers, dragged Sandbrook back up, but it wasn't the sort of thing that would have caught everyone's attention, and even if it was, why wait until now if he's so damned desperate for answers? It's been months since Sandbrook was resolved, and we're just meeting him now?”

“Hmm,” the Doctor said. “I agree that's a bit suspicious, but so is your mind, Alec. One shudders to think what it must be like in there all the time. Have you no faith in humanity at all? I happen to think that humans are marvelous creatures. They're so inventive and curious, and they never stop, even when all sense says that they should.”

Hardy shook his head. “And I fail to see what you think is so wonderful about humans. As a species, we're—they're—destructive. Killers, rapists, thieves. Even the ones that aren't criminals are nothing to boast about. None of them are wonderful, most are best selfish prats, and the ones that aren't... well, they never last long, do they?”

Ellie shook her head. “It's not as bad as all that, Hardy. You know it's not. Because even with all the bad we see, we see good, too.”

Hardy shook his head. “You might see good, Miller. I don't.”

She didn't know what to say to that, and she wasn't sure she wanted to fight him on it. “What about Daisy? And don't say she doesn't count because she's not fully human. Or your mother? Both of them, as complicated as that is. There are good people out there. Beth, Chloe, Lizzie, Tom, Fred... It's not all bad. And they're not gone, not forever. You sent them away for their own good, some of them, but they'll be back.”

“Seeing that much good in the universe is only going to cause you more pain later,” Hardy told her. Shouldn't Joe have taught you that?”

Ellie frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Is anyone hungry?” the Doctor asked. “I think we could do with some food. Especially you, Alec. You didn't eat with the rest of us, and that could really be affecting your mood.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“I swear, you never eat. And that's not a Time Lord thing—your father eats all the time. What is wrong with you?” Ellie asked, still stung by his comment about Joe. That was uncalled for, though she knew that Hardy was still hurting from this case—that wasn't going to stop until they found the man who'd killed Ailie and locked him away for good.

“I am not ruled by my stomach, unlike other people.”

The Doctor shook his head. “There is a difference, my son, between being ruled by one's stomach and never eating at all. I'm trying to recall seeing you eat, and I swear I haven't. I saw you drink cocoa once, but you refused even a jelly baby then. And I know you didn't eat when we first met, when you stole my scarf—though I do think that's not technically my first meeting of you, just the first meeting you know of—then there's the bit with the Aeturn, and I know you didn't eat then, and the when we met and I fixed your hearts, spurring on one of our longer adventures together... I interrupted a meal once, but no guarantee you would have eaten any of that, and no, I cannot think of one instance where we've interacted where you had any food.”

“Ha,” Ellie said. “I knew it. This isn't just a one time thing with you—you really don't eat unless someone makes you do it. What is that about?”

“I eat, Miller. I just don't see the need to be constantly making a fuss about it like you and others do,” Hardy grumbled. He turned to his father. “And you're wrong. There was at least a week's worth of meals once.”

“Does that count? You'd been arched at the time,” the Doctor said, and Ellie frowned, not understanding what either of them were talking about. “Oh, best avoid that subject for now. I want to see you eat something before we take our next step.”

“Fine,” Hardy muttered. “It's not like I want to be stuck with either of you and food in the bloody car for hours on end.”

The Doctor stared at him. “Wait. Hours? No, I don't travel for hours in a car. That's absurd. One hop, skip, and a jump in the TARDIS. That's what I do.”

Hardy gave him a grim smile. “The TARDIS is on another planet, and the next step is to revisit the scene. In this case, it's more necessary than most. Somewhere along the path they took that night, Gabriel and Sylvie were ambushed. He and the car were never seen again. We need to know where they could have been hidden for this long without anyone finding them. That file includes notes on the searches done by the locals, doesn't it?”

Ellie nodded. “Yes. They've marked off grids and everything, thought... Alan was right. They came to the conclusion awful fast that Gabriel killed her, and once her body was found, they didn't continue to search nearly as diligently for any sign of his.”

“We have to go there, get a sense of the location,” Hardy said, grimacing. “I don't know how much he would have repeated from before, but I might have a better sense of where he took them. He didn't kill Sylvie where her body was found. That was just where he left her so she would be found.”

Ellie winced. That personal knowledge was an advantage for them in some ways, but this case was going to be far worse for Hardy than Danny's case or Sandbrook, both of which had nearly done in his failing heart. “We can speak to Alan, too.”

Hardy shook his head. “Leave that for when we know something—and no, we are not telling him I survived something like this. I have a strong sense they're connected, I'm sure of it, but proving it is a different matter, and we are _not_ telling that man anything until we know more.”

Ellie agreed. She didn't see the point in torturing Alan with the idea of his daughter being the victim of a serial killer who in theory could have been stopped back when Hardy was still a child. “I meant we could go over more of his memory of what led up to Sylvie's disappearance. We can do that without telling him anything.”

Hardy started to pace. “I'm not sure it would make any difference. He only knows up to when they left in the car, and that part... that's different. Ailie and I were walking. They were in a car...”

Ellie looked at him. “Could he have been on foot? We could ask Alan if he thought Gabriel would have stopped for someone who looked like he needed help.”

The Doctor shook his head. “I don't think we actually need to do that. He already answered that question. He said that the boy was a 'decent sort' and a 'good kid' if a little less than punctual. Knowing that, I think we're safe assuming that he likely would have stopped for a stranded motorist. That means he set a trap for them, but I think you suspected that already.”

Hardy nodded. “I did. Even though them coming after Ailie and me that night seemed random, I think he may have stalked Sylvie. If she was killed, as we suspect, to get my attention, I think he chose her deliberately, after considering others, and decided she was the most like Ailie. I noticed enough similarities in that short conversation with Rayes, and others would see them, too.”

“I noticed the hair,” the Doctor agreed. “Well, unpleasant as it is, I think we're agreed upon that much. So... food and travel. We're also agreed on that, aren't we?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

* * *

“Lord save me from ever traveling with your father in a car again,” Miller said, and Hardy had to agree with her. Prolonged car travel did not agree with the Time Lord, who had made trips with a car sick Daisy seem more enjoyable. “I don't suppose you know any good sedatives we can give him for the trip back?”

He shook his head, though a part of him was amused by her reaction. The rest of it was still irritated by the close quarters with his father. “I only know aspirin is like poison.”

“No, not that,” Miller said. “As annoyed as I was, I don't want to hurt him. I just... I'd like some peace for the drive back to Broadchurch, that's all.”

Hardy nodded. He could do with that himself, since his father's impatience was worse than a child's when he was bored, as he had been from only a few minutes into the drive. He had hoped that fixing the shimmer device to K-9 would keep his father preoccupied for longer, but then again, Hardy wouldn't have taken long to get it done himself, and he was only half Time Lord.

“Maybe a coloring book and some crayons.”

Miller looked at him. “Are you kidding me?”

Hardy shrugged. “It worked for Daisy as a girl, and he seems to be acting about the same age.”

Miller stared at him. “You're making jokes. And you ate before we left. Are we sure you're okay?”

“Oh, don't start,” Hardy said, turning to look for his father. He'd said he wanted to test the shimmer on K-9 out before they spent any extended time investigating, which seemed like a good idea. He didn't want any of the locals realizing they were walking around with a robotic dog, even if he fully intended to use K-9 to help them locate the missing vehicle. He knew it wasn't the sort of thing everyone else had access to, either, but he was making a concession there, since he wanted this matter resolved before the TARDIS returned with Daisy and gave this monster another chance at his daughter.

“Success,” the Doctor called as he returned, the dog rambling along beside him. K-9 still sounded robotic, and to Hardy he looked very much the same as usual. “I'm told I have an adorable Scottish terrier here. Don't you think so?”

“Um,” Miller began, looking K-9 over. “I think it needs some work.”

Hardy frowned. “Exactly what does it look like?”

“You can see through shimmer, too?”

“Enhanced Time Lord senses,” the Doctor said, smiling at her. “Oh, it's not hard to see through shimmer, not when you know it like I do, and while Alec is perhaps less familiar with the devices, he is still a Time demi-Lord and quite capable of seeing past them.”

“Right, well,” Miller said. “Something's off about him being a terrier, though Scottish is a bit fitting, I suppose, seeing as he was there for so long with you, Hardy.”

Hardy grimaced. She would say that. “As long as he passes for a regular dog, it'll be fine. I just don't want everyone in the county seeing him and getting out phones or some nonsense to take pictures. K-9's too valuable to let that happen.”

“Affirmative,” the dog said, sounding pleased as he reached Hardy's side. “I suggest further upgrades be made to the shimmer technology for an improved image.”

“Certainly,” the Doctor agreed. “We'll even give you a few different breeds to choose from so that you're not bored in the mean time. In the meantime, we have a crime scene to find, don't we?”

Hardy nodded. They did, and while he thought they were close to it, he wanted to start at the beginning. “We should drive from Rayes' house to the theater.”

“You think you'll spot something along the way?” Miller asked. “He'd only have been pretending to need help there, and he could have disabled them or threatened them into driving pretty far away from where he tricked them into helping him.”

“Oh, aye,” Hardy agreed. “It won't be here, and it won't be that close to where Sylvie's body was found, either.”

“Perhaps in between, though,” Miller said, thinking aloud. “He wouldn't want to go far from either the abduction site or the dump site as either way he risked someone discovering him with his victims or seeing the car on the road after they should have been at the theater. He'd be somewhere close enough to both but far enough away from a standard search of either location, even if the police weren't even looking for the abduction site.”

“Exactly,” Hardy said, and Miller gave him a smile of triumph.

“That does leave us with a lot of ground to cover.”

“Oh, but that's why we have K-9,” the Doctor said. “As soon as we have the two locations, K-9's sensors can help narrow down the section in between, possibly even locate the missing vehicle without us having to do much of a physical search at all. Alec's memories and training should peg the one site for us, and we should know where that car is in time for tea. Ooh, tea. Did we bring any biscuits with us? No? Damn.”

* * *

“Miller, pull over,” Alec ordered, and she did, stopping the car on the side of the road. The Doctor watched as his son got out, crossing in front of the car. Though he knew that this might not be the spot they were looking for, he did not want to be left behind.

He opened his door and followed his son, joining Alec in front of the car. “So... this is it?”

Alec looked around them, pulling on his ear as he considered his surroundings. After a few moments, he nodded. “Aye. I think so. The road curves here, so they wouldn't have seen that he was waiting, not walking. They'd have come close to hitting him, and that would give them another reason to stop.”

“Makes sense,” the Doctor said, noting the same things his son had as he looked around. “How far are we from where they found Sylvie's body?”

Alec frowned. “What, you don't know? Aren't Time Lords supposed to have an innate sense of where they are as well as when they are?”

“I thought we made you eat so you'd be less grumpy,” Ellie said as she walked over to him. “Clearly that didn't work.”

Alec grunted. “You have the coordinates for where the body was found?”

She nodded, taking out her phone and pulling up an app on the screen. “According to this, we're about... ten miles from there now. It's to the northwest of us.”

“Do we know what lies in between there and here?” the Doctor asked. “I didn't have us get any geological surveys—ooh, imagine if we'd gone by air. We'd have a whole survey and a good idea what we might be looking at. I'd like to do it by balloon. What do you think, Alec? Could we hire a balloon?”

Alec winced. “I knew letting you stay was a mistake.”

“Oi, don't be like that,” the Doctor said. “I may have been a little overly enthusiastic about an idea you consider frivolous, but there's no crime in making the most of the experience, even if that experience is trying to find a body or a vehicle that have been missing for ten years. I understand you thinking that it should be somber and formal. You probably think that I am being disrespectful, but I'm not. Well, perhaps a touch. Social niceties, not my strong suit. I came out rude and not ginger this regeneration.”

“I think an aerial view might be helpful,” Ellie said, trying to be diplomatic. “We might do that if we need to, since Rose did say Alec has access to Vitex funds for whatever he wanted. We could hire a plane or even a balloon, though I think if we could manage to do this from ground level, we'd be able to be on site sooner.”

The Doctor nodded. “That is true, but there is something rather... intriguing about going up to search. If we had the TARDIS, it would be a simple matter.”

“You really are attached to your ship, aren't you?”

The Doctor smiled. “Other Time Lords saw them as only tools or weapons, but mine... she's special. She and I share a bond, and not just of driver and ship, but of spirit. She was the right one to steal, that I know, and I don't regret it for a minute. She's given me many wonderful things over the years, though I might just have to say the family she helped me find is the best of them all.”

Alec snorted. “You're getting soppy.”

“You are special to her, don't forget that,” the Doctor told him. In some ways, Alec was a part of the TARDIS as well as a part of him, seeing as the time vortex of the TARDIS had merged with Rose to make this all possible.

“What about the dog?” Ellie asked. “K-9 was going to do some sensor readings and calculations now that we're here.”

“Keys,” Alec told her, holding out his hand.

“What?”

“Are you sure about that?” the Doctor asked. “You never saw the place they took you, after all. I didn't go near it myself, too focused on making sure you didn't die that night.”

Alec turned away. “You're assuming I never went back.”


	11. Time for a Location

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie, the Doctor, and Hardy find a place that could be where the car was hidden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I made progress. I'm glad of that, though I'm still a bit concerned on this one. I hate doubts, but that's all I ever seem to have, thinking this isn't very interesting or it'll go all wrong somehow. I hate my brain most times.

* * *

"You went back to the place where you almost died and where Ailie was killed,” Ellie said. She frowned. She didn't know that she should be surprised. Hardy did tend to start with the crime scenes if they had one, and if they didn't, he'd find it before doing much else, like he had with the hut and Danny. He'd found Pippa, too, and that made him a very determined man when it came to that sort of thing.

“Why would you do that to yourself?” the Doctor asked. “I know I went places I'd gone with Rose after I lost her, but only in the sense of same planets and not in the sense of torturing myself, which is what you would have done with that.”

“I couldn't let her murderer go free, either, not if I could do something about it,” Hardy said. “After I learned more about forensics, I went back and examined that cellar... I didn't find anything, and by then K-9 had died—”

“Negative, Master Alec. I am not dead.”

“You were, for all intents and purposes,” Hardy told the dog, while Ellie tried to figure out how it had gotten out of the car and this close without them noticing. She supposed the shimmer would have to alter the robotic noises, too, if it was going to be effective. “I couldn't fix you, and I ended up leaving. I transferred down into England and left it all behind, including you. She kept you, found him again, and he got you working when I couldn't.”

“Best not to mention the school,” the Doctor said, and the dog gave a nod.

“Affirmative.”

Hardy shook his head, apparently not willing to be baited, though Ellie was curious, and she was going to ask the Doctor about it later. “Back in the car.”

“You're sure you can recognize this place by sight?”

“It won't be the same, no, but I think he'd have picked a place that would be similar in nature, and as close to the one he used before, since he was effectively recreating his murder of Ailie with Sylvie. He'd want things to be as close as possible.”

Ellie hesitated, not sure she wanted to ask this, but then she didn't know how she could not ask. “Why go to all the trouble of killing someone else and staging it the same as Ailie? I know we think he did it to bait you, but why not go directly to you? You were married to Tess by the time this happened, so... he could have tried to recreate it with her.”

“Tess is...” Hardy grimaced, turning away from Miller and starting back to the car. “She wasn't enough like Ailie.”

“More like a near opposite, if I'm not off in my guess,” the Doctor said. “I've yet to meet my ex-daughter-in-law, but I've got to say, I'm not particularly keen on the idea. She sounds frightful, and that's after knowing Donna.”

“You like Donna.”

The Doctor smiled. “True, I do. She was a wonderful mate—and by mate, I mean friend—to me, especially after I lost Rose. I needed her, and I still like having her with us, even if she might be going back to Vitex full time soon enough. She did have everything with Lee once, a family and all, and sometimes I think she misses it. Other times, I think she's like me, and she runs.”

Ellie nodded. She could understand that. “I wanted to, once. After Danny died, and it was Joe, I wanted to run, but I had nowhere to go. I could barely afford that flat in Devon, but I couldn't go home, either. It wasn't until I took Tom back and made it my own, repainted, tried to replace the memories, that I thought I could really stay. Before... it just made me want to run again.”

The Doctor nodded. “Understandable. I am all about the running. Started centuries ago with Susan, and never, ever stopped. Well, I suppose my exile here on Earth sort of did that for a bit, but I overcame that eventually. And I'm without the TARDIS now, which is a strange feeling.”

“I'm sure Jenny appreciates the trust you placed in her by letting her take your beloved ship,” Ellie told him, and he smiled back at her.

“I hope so,” the Doctor said. “And it's not just the ship I trusted her with. I gave her my granddaughter, best friends, and... well... someone else to watch over as well.”

“Is that how you consider Rose?”

The Doctor grimaced. “It's complicated, obviously. After all, we share a child, but neither of us had a hand in raising said child, and she died, and that's a whole dimension of weird that is not easily overcome, even for a Time Lord. I'm not even sure if she still feels... well... Let's find that crime scene, shall we?”

* * *

Miller cursed when Hardy stopped the car, but he ignored it as he opened his door, getting out. He had almost missed it, the dilapidated barn that was more than half hidden by the trees. If not for a small patch of white, it might have been completely obscured from the road, and it could have been his half-alien eyes or his focus that caught it, since he was looking specifically for something like it.

They'd taken Ailie to a house, one more a ruin than a home, and there hadn't been much of it left above ground. He hadn't known that when he was there, that he'd seen later, when he'd been able to get the files for the case. No one had told him where Ailie's body had been found, and to this day, he was almost certain his mother didn't know.

He figured his fate and Ailie's might have been the same as Gabriel's, had he not been the genetic freak that he was. They might never have been found in that cellar.

He got out, walking around in front of the car. He studied the building, thinking it the right sort of place, since enough of the structure existed intact to conceal Gabriel's car, if it had been parked inside. The roof's gaping hole didn't expose enough of the interior to see anything, but he didn't see any signs of a foundation, either.

“You think this is it?” his father asked, coming up next to him.

“Maybe not where he killed them,” Hardy admitted, “but I think it may be where he left the car.”

“We'll have to find out who owns this place and get their permission to look at that barn,” Miller said, leaning against her car door. “I don't know. It doesn't look safe.”

“That's half the point, though, isn't it?” the Doctor asked. “For anything to have remained concealed inside it, there had to be a reason no one would go near it, and the lack of safety inherent in such a structure is the perfect excuse.”

Hardy nodded. “That was my thought. For Gabriel's car not to have been found in the ten years since, it would have to have been concealed in a way that no one would have seen. I know we have a great deal more technology now, but a car is still not that simple a thing to hide. There's a lot of open land out here, and yet that car never turned itself up in ten years. No, it had to be somewhere no one would look for it, but not somewhere connected to him. Yes, he could have concealed it on his own land, but that would mean—”

“You'd connect it to him as soon as it was found, and that's not necessarily what he wants,” Miller finished. “You know what he looks like, don't you?”

“What he did when he attacked us, yes,” Hardy said. “I couldn't forget that face, but I can't be sure what he might look like now. He's aged, as I have, and dozens of things could have altered his appearance, but a photograph from that time... aye, I could look at it and know it was him.”

Miller nodded. “I'll have to see if I can get a directory listing for this place.”

She took out her phone, grumbling and holding it up to pick up service. The Doctor frowned, walking back to take the phone from her.

“Give me that.”

“What do you think you're—”

“Jiggery pokery,” the Doctor told her, pointing his sonic screwdriver at the mobile. “Honestly, Alec. You haven't improved their phones?”

“You're assuming I want them to have service anywhere. Maybe I don't.”

The Doctor grinned at him. “Oh, I see. That's how it is. You think you'd have a bit of peace without that, do you? Well, too late now. Ellie's been fixed up, and there's no way I'm not doing this for Daisy if Jenny hasn't already, and Sarah Jane, too.”

Hardy nodded. He wasn't surprised to hear his father say that. It wasn't the wrong thing to do, especially if they were all going to do more traveling through space. Hardy had just left things as they were, another way of holding onto what he used to have before he learned his true parentage. Everything was about aliens anymore, and he hated that.

Not that this was better. It sure as hell wasn't. Knowing Ailie's killer was out there was difficult enough—he'd almost started to believe the man was dead after so long without sign of him, but this case proved he'd been around long enough to have killed dozens of others. They might never know how many people were dead at this one's hands. Hardy doubted he'd tell them the truth, even if they found him. He liked to brag, but not that much.

He'd want people to keep suffering with the unknown, wondering what had happened to their loved ones. He'd want them to be as lost as Alan Rayes was.

“Forget the call for now, Miller,” Hardy said. “We may not need to make it.”

She frowned, but a moment later, she remembered. “Oh. K-9.”

Hardy went to the car, opening the door to K-9's side. “Have you already scanned the area?”

“Affirmative.”

“What's in the barn?”

“My sensors have located a petrol based vehicle within the structure,” K-9 reported. “Analysis of oxidation suggests a manufacturing date at least twenty years prior to the current date.”

That fit.

“I'll try and find the owner of this land,” Miller said. She pointed a finger at the Doctor. “Don't do anything before we have permission. We're not officially sanctioned here, and we don't need to risk this getting thrown out in court.”

The Doctor frowned. “You do realize half our evidence comes from K-9, who while wonderful and brilliant, is very much not admissible in court.”

“Yes, but that car could be, so no one is going near it until we're sure we can use anything from it if it is Gabriel's, and it might not be,” she reminded him. “We don't know what's in there, and it could belong to the same person who owns that barn.”

Hardy and his father exchanged looks. He didn't think either of them believed that.

* * *

The Doctor waited all of two seconds for Ellie to lose herself in her call, moving away with determination, knowing she'd want to stop him but that he didn't care. He was convinced that Gabriel's car was inside the building, and much as he wanted to give his son the day in court this would demand, he didn't want to wait.

Besides, if things got that dire, he could always use the TARDIS to prompt someone to discover this vehicle before they did, which, while a bit of a paradox, would fix things. Just someone who would report what they saw and someone who would connect it to Gabriel... yes, that could be arranged, and it would be a small fix, truly. Nothing to cause reapers or anything else of the sort.

He neared the building, looking for the best point of entry. The doors on the one side seemed to be supporting the roof, and moving them would likely provoke a collapse, and that they did not need. He didn't want it coming down on their heads or destroying what they might find inside.

“K-9,” Alec began, “where is the strongest point of the structure?”

“Analysis suggests the northwest corner has the least amount of rot in the wood,” the dog reported. “Though it is present in all parts of the building. Estimate eighty-three percent likelihood of collapse.”

“A shame this doesn't work on wood,” the Doctor said, pocketing his sonic screwdriver. “Some day, I will do something about that, but then one has to have something, doesn't one, to keep from being all powerful.”

Alec gave him a look, and the Doctor offered him a smile in return. His son snorted and went toward the gap on the other side of the barn, one not visible until one was up next to the building itself. He leaned in. “Looks to be the same color as the one in the file.”

“Then this must be the place,” the Doctor said. “Stand back, please.”

Alec frowned. “I thought you said the screwdriver didn't work on wood.”

“It doesn't, but we have established that I have regenerations left, whereas it's still a bit in doubt that you have any,” the Doctor reminded him. “I won't risk you, and you know it. You matter too much to me and to time, actually.”

“I wish you'd stop saying that,” Alec grumbled. “I don't like being tangled up in time, even if I am part Time Lord.”

“It's in your blood,” the Doctor said. “No escaping it. Now let's see here... I should be able to go through without touching the wood, which should help keep it standing. All right, here goes.”

He stepped through, careful to keep himself from touching the actual structure, and he was inside, stepping on dusty ground with a cough. The air was musty, full of decay and disuse, and he almost wished he'd sent K-9 instead.

“You see a plate?” Alec called to him. “If it matches, we'll know we've got the right car.”

“Oh,” the Doctor said. “I do think we do.”

“The plate matches the one from the file? You remember what that was?”

The Doctor didn't, actually. He hadn't paid a lot of attention to it, not in the same way that he might have done other things. He'd read it, but his mind had been on what happened to his son and the possibility of this killer going after Alec again rather than a seemingly unimportant detail like a license plate. Who cared about that?

Still, he didn't really need the license to know that they were looking at the right vehicle.

“No, but I think I just found Gabriel. Or... rather... what's left of him.”


	12. Time to Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The discovery doesn't tell them as much as they'd like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular section was very difficult to get through. I started it, made some progress, and ended up finishing up Losing the Light before this chapter.
> 
> The whole tooth thing didn't help, but it is just a difficult part of this chapter. I admit... when it comes to the investigative bits of mysteries... I'm not that good at them. I'm not good at a lot of things, but that one I know I'm bad at.
> 
> I hope things will get better with the next bit, since they'll be closer to where I need them to be.

* * *

“We still don't know where either of them was killed.”

“Agreed,” the Doctor said. “We can't prove that Gabriel died here, and even if he did, the majority of the damage likely happened elsewhere, as it did with you, Alec. It is slightly unsettling to note that if he had intended this to be a repetition—why did he pick a couple with a vehicle? You didn't have one, and he wouldn't have left your body in it.”

Ellie grimaced. “You do realize that you're—”

“Miller, I'm not bloody glass,” Hardy grumbled, and she grimaced.

“Still, I was veering toward my rude side,” the Doctor said. “Not a thought of how that would sound or affect you. I'm a rubbish parent. I'm sorry.”

Alec shook his head. “I don't want you coddling me. I'm fine. I don't need you censoring yourself. Nothing you've said is a shock, not something I haven't already have thought about. Him choosing a couple with a car is different, but the rest of the similarities still have me convinced it's the same killer. He just altered his methods a little, likely because he had no better way of getting them alone. Ailie and I walked to the school and back because it was a small town and almost none of us had cars. Our parents did, but that was different.”

“It would be very difficult to believe the expense of an additional vehicle was necessary in such a small place, I agree,” the Doctor said, and Ellie gave him a bit of a frown. “I've known planets with larger settlements with less transportation, and economic factors seemed to have been the cause of it. I would have given you Bessie, had I known of you.”

“Bessie?”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctors aid. “I had a car. Have a car? Not sure. It was during my time with UNIT. I modified her myself. Wonderful thing. Very yellow. Bright. I like bright things.”

“I don't think I could see Hardy ever getting in a yellow vehicle if he had any choice about it.”

“I should see if the TARDIS will change itself to yellow just to see his reaction when he walks out,” the Doctor observed, amused. “Still, I wouldn't mind taking a drive in Bessie for nostalgia's sake, as well as the necessary travel.”

“You behind the wheel?” Ellie asked, sounding a bit horrified. “I don't... perhaps there is a better way to get there? Oh, Hardy, what about calling in a favor from Vitex? Do they own any of those whatsits?”

“Helicopter or private plane?”

“Oh, I do hope it's not a zeppelin,” the Doctor said, shuddering. He did not want to do that again. He had gone back to see the famous Hidenburg before—though he would not mention it as he would no doubt be blamed for that, too, and it had entirely nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.

“Assuming that they would give us access to anything like that,” Alec began, shifting uneasily. “It might be best. We have to wait on tests here, but they know nothing about Scotland, and that gives us another crime scene, another angle to consider. The forensics will be more be more or less useless by now, but something there might tell us more. Maybe you'll see something I missed.”

Ellie gave Alec a small smile. “Damn right I will. That's what I do.”

He shook his head. “In Sandbrook, maybe, but not always.”

She frowned. “Why are we even arguing about this? I am here to help, and we are a bit stuck, since we have to let others handle the forensics and we gave your father's time ship away to keep others safe, but we don't have to fight about something that small and insignificant. I helped before, and I will help now, and you can't say I didn't notice little things before—if I hadn't pointed out Danny's other phone, where would we be?”

Alec grunted. “Let's go, Miller.”

“We have to wait for the locals to—”

“They're here,” the Doctor said, and K-9 gave them the affirmative as well. “May as well go introduce ourselves.”

* * *

“They'll pick us up in the morning,” Hardy said, still a bit disgusted by the thought, though when Vitex heard 'Alec Hardy,' they'd gladly given him whatever he wanted. That was a change, seeing as the locals were difficult as hell when they reported their find of Gabriel's remains. He didn't know why they were so unwilling to accept that. It was a suspicious death no matter what, and he didn't see that they could ignore it, even if they didn't want to look for someone else in Sylvie's murder.

“Sending a car, even? Wow, I guess you do rate,” Miller said, and he gave her a look. She shrugged. “What? I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can. It's not like the rest of this is pleasant, so I want to have those little bits. You having connections enough to get us a fancy car to drive us to a private plane, that's something to get excited about because I've never done any of that before.”

“The sad part is that you want to,” he muttered, not wanting to deal with the fuss. He'd rather drive himself and be done with it, but the idea of that much time in the car with either Miller or his father, that he could not stand.

“Oh, don't go knocking the fanfare,” his father said, plopping down in the other chair with a large bowl in his hands. “Fanfare is a wonderful thing at times. It can be quite memorable. Even wonderful.”

“Explains what you were doing running the Olympic torch on the telly,” Miller said, and the Doctor grinned, reaching into his bowl. “What is that?”

“Food,” the Doctor answered, lifting up some kind of unhealthy snack. He tossed a handful into his mouth and started chewing on it.

“Remind me to send Vitex the bill for your father's room and board,” Miller muttered. Hardy just shook his head, not sure why his father had a seemingly endless appetite when he himself had next to none most of the time.

“I'm not a part of Vitex,” the Doctor said. “You can't bill them for me.”

“Your girlfriend is.”

The Doctor choked. “Um... that's not... it's a bit... we don't... There's nothing... official.”

“You have a kid,” Miller reminded him. “That's official, whether men admit it or not.”

“It's not just the men that would deny the connection,” Hardy said. “There are reasons why the mother would not want to make that tie known. That's been the source of several domestic calls and even some murders.”

“Fine, point taken, but your father and Rose have something going on, and they have you, so it's not like he can deny it,” Miller said. “I don't know why it's so hard to define what they are.”

“I think I would rather not define what they are,” Hardy said, putting a hand to his head as it started to ache again.

“I second that,” the Doctor said. “That's for me and Rose to... well, it's just not something to discuss without her, so we're not going to do it now.”

“Fine. Speaking of discussions, though... Should we tell Alan about finding Gabriel? He will find out from Gabriel's parents as soon as they're notified, and it might be better coming from us, seeing as we did find his body.”

“You want to explain that?” Hardy asked. He didn't. He did not want to tell Rayes how they'd managed to stumble onto that body, not when it had gone undiscovered for a decade and they'd found it within a day of getting his case.

He didn't want Rayes to know of his connection to this case. Ever. He would like to keep that to himself. He didn't talk to people about Ailie. He'd had no choice with his father, his mother, even Rose and Miller, but no one else had to know.

“No, not particularly,” Miller said, “but I think we owe him that much. We wouldn't have anything if he hadn't brought this case to us, and we need it to finally get justice for your friend.”

Hardy didn't say anything to that. They all knew it was too late for that. Ailie was gone, and this wouldn't bring her back, not her or Slyvie or any of this man's other victims. Even if they found him, they couldn't hope for more than stopping him now, and that was, again, too late, since they couldn't guarantee anything, not even that the killer was still alive.

They might have answers. It would not be justice.


	13. Time for More Trips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie, the Doctor, and Hardy go to Scotland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They have at least reached Scotland, which is progress. I'm sorry I've been so slow of late. Work has been brutal and my health is not doing so well, either. I've got a lot of things weighing on me, and writing has been difficult, but I still want to finish this story. It just may take a bit longer than I'd hoped.

* * *

_“You said you'd die here,” Hardy said, running his fingers over the name etched in the stone. “It was almost like you knew, but how could you have known?”_

_He didn't get an answer. He didn't expect one. He knew that Ailie was gone. She was dead, and her body being buried here didn't mean a damned thing. She wasn't in that hole, only her bones were, and they weren't going to give him any answers or absolution. He'd let her down. He'd let her die._

_She'd been scared and hurt, and he couldn't do anything to help her._

_He hadn't even done the right thing in dying. He was alive, but for what? She was the one everyone wanted alive—his mother and K-9 being notable exceptions to that—not that either of them wanted Ailie dead, just that they still wanted him alive. Ailie was good. She deserved to be here._

_He didn't._

_He never would._

_He didn't know that there was any way of righting what he'd done. He might not have given Ailie any formal promises, but she knew she could get him to do just about anything she asked. Look at that damned dance they'd gone to, that was all her, since he would rather have burned the gym down than go, but she'd wanted to, and somehow he'd agreed._

_If he hadn't... would she be alive now? Could he have saved her by refusing to go? She would have been disappointed, but she'd still be alive._

_She should be alive. He should have been able to save her somehow. He'd fought them all off, hadn't he? So why couldn't he have done that before she died? Why hadn't he been able to save her?_

_He leaned his head against the stone._

_“She would say you wouldn't want me to do this,” Hardy muttered. “And she's probably right, but damn it, AIlie. You weren't supposed to die. It should have been me.”_

* * *

“You're here.”

Ellie heard Hardy groan, and she admitted, she felt a bit tempted to do the same. They were a few steps from where the car waited, intent on driving them to their plane, but blocking that path was Alan Rayes, and none of them was particularly eager to talk to him right now. Yes, they did have things to tell him, but at the moment, it was hard to know what they should and shouldn't—especially as she was almost certain Hardy was not willing to discuss any part of Ailie's case or what happened to him with Alan. The man deserved to know what happened to his daughter, none of them denied that, but Ellie wasn't sure that all the details would help, especially not the theory they had about that poor girl dying mostly as a taunt to Hardy.

“Yes, Alan, we are, but we're also—”

“I tried to talk to you yesterday, but no one was here,” Alan said, a bit of hurt and accusation in his tone. Ellie felt it. Hardy just ignored it as he went past to the car, putting his bag in the boot.

“We... we were working on the case,” Ellie told him, “and that meant traveling. I'm sorry we didn't tell you, but you have to understand—that's not how this works. We don't inform the family of every step we take, especially as many of them don't lead anywhere. If we have something, we would tell you. I promise.”

Alan frowned. “That's what they always told me, but I've gone years without hearing a word, and I can't go on like this.”

“You won't,” the Doctor told him. “This matter should be resolved shortly.”

“What? I thought you didn't find anything.”

Ellie winced. Nice of the Doctor and his son to be so very bad at this social thing, leaving it to her to try and fix. “We were able to help with a search area near where Sylvie was found and likely disappeared, and the local constabulary has... They may have found Gabriel's car.”

“You got them to look for it?” Alan asked, frowning. “I don't understand. They refused before—when I asked, when his parents asked, when the other detectives asked—”

“The other detectives did not have access to what we do,” the Doctor said, flashing him a brilliant smile. “Our resources are a bit... extensive. Time and space and all. That, and brilliant minds. Truly, fabulously brilliant minds.”

“You're not a bit full of yourself.”

The Doctor looked back at his son, frowning. “I said minds, didn't I? I meant yours as well, and don't think I didn't. We have a collective force here that is great, and could be greater still if we need it to, since we could have Sarah Jane and Rose and Donna and Jenny and Daisy and that's only the people in the TARDIS at the moment. We could have even more than that if we so desired.”

“I don't need anyone else on this,” Hardy grumbled. “And I don't want them, either.”

Alan frowned. “You're letting other people handle the car.”

“Aye,” Hardy said. “I'm not a forensic expert. The locals can do that, run the tests, find everything they can. I've other things to look into.”

“What things?”

Hardy gave Alan a dark look. “If you want my assistance with this, you have to accept that I will handle it as I see fit, and that does not mean including you in every step. I don't do that with anyone.”

“He doesn't even do it with the detectives he supervises,” Ellie agreed, getting her own look from Hardy. She shrugged. She wasn't saying anything that wasn't true. Multiple times during their cases, he'd held things back from her. He was still doing it now. She knew he had his reasons, every time, but that didn't make it any less irritating.

“Please,” Alan said. “If you think you know where Gabriel is—”

“We believe he's dead,” Ellie told him, tempted to admit that there were remains in the car, but they couldn't be sure that they were Gabriel's, not without tests. Even K-9 couldn't tell them that. They had to wait for more information. “There is a possible connection to another case, and we are looking into that now.”

Alan nodded. “Another case. What case?”

“I can't discuss that,” Hardy told him. He gave Ellie a pointed look, and she nodded, accepting that. She hadn't intended to say anything about his part in all of this, not yet, at least. Not before they were sure—and preferably after they had this killer in custody.

“We can keep you informed about your daughter's case,” Ellie said, trying to gentle Hardy's words some, “but we can't give you information on anyone else's. And I'm sorry, but we really do have to get going. I promise we'll let you know if we find anything.”

K-9 rolled past Alan and hovered himself up into the car, and the Doctor gave him a smile before getting in after him. Hardy went around to the other side of the car.

Ellie gave Alan's arm a reassuring pat. “We will find Sylvie's killer.”

“I could come—”

“No.”

Alan sighed. “Could you at least tell me where you're going?”

Ellie hesitated. She shouldn't, but she didn't know that it could hurt that much, and since she didn't know exactly where they were going herself, she couldn't tell him anything too helpful.

“Scotland.”

* * *

“Why a bloody helicopter?” Miller demanded as soon as she was on the ground. “Vitex has millions and millions of dollars, and you asked for a bloody helicopter?”

Hardy grunted. He'd chosen the transportation for a reason, and he didn't actually care what reason Miller had for disliking it. True, he would have preferred other methods of travel, especially since his father kept pushing the limits of the pilot's patience with his need to look out the door, but they were done with one ride in the helicopter instead of a flight into an airport and another long drive from the airport to the ancestral Hardy home.

He didn't want Miller there, period. It could make her start remembering, and he didn't want that, either. Facing this place again was difficult enough without having the complication of the damned farce the TARDIS had created for them.

“It was faster.”

“Faster,” Miller repeated, gearing up for a lecture. He could hear it in her tone. “We could have—”

“Would you rather have flown to the airport and then spent hours in the car to get here?” Hardy countered. She stared at him, horror showing on her face. “We are only a short distance from the place where Ailie died.”

“Yes, I believe I put the TARDIS down about here that night,” the Doctor said, looking around at the trees. “Not that she couldn't have gotten closer, but as I recall, I had quite a bit of running to do to get to Alec at the time.”

Miller looked around. “This... is a bloody forest.”

“Not all of it,” Hardy said. He turned her in the other direction. “There's a clearing ahead that way. And if you go further to the right, you will hit the road. It's not that far from it. Further than I felt capable of making it that night, but it wasn't like it was so far that a motorist finding me was impossible to believe.”

Miller looked at him. “You didn't recognize your father that night?”

Hardy shook his head. He hadn't known that voice, and he'd been mostly out of it as his father tried to tend to his injuries and keep him alive. Even now, picturing that night, he couldn't focus on his father's face. Not enough light, too much pain, too much guilt.

“He did think I was insane,” the Doctor said, smiling just a little. “That was almost amusing, despite the dire circumstances of that encounter. I chose to see it as a good sign. He was lucid, and that meant he would live.”

“You already knew he would live.”

The Doctor shook his head. “No. It's not that simple. You humans always assume it is, but it isn't. Time is in flux. Constantly changing. What we do can alter it, no matter how set the future seems to be. Oh, yes, there are fixed points that cannot be altered without extreme consequences, but some things can still change. Alec is alive because I went back in time. Had I not gone, had I not treated his injuries, he would have died, regardless of the whole meeting him in the future and all. Yes, I'd have had no reason to go back... but had I not gone... Alec would be dead.”

“My head hurts again.”

“Things are very timey wimey, that's true,” the Doctor said. He turned to Hardy. “Are you prepared to lead us on?”

No. He wasn't. Truthfully, he didn't want to be here, and probably if he hadn't had the helicopter take them to just outside the location, he would have tried to find some way of delaying coming here—or he'd have some way of doing this alone. He didn't want Miller here. He didn't know if he could stand having his father here, even if the man had been here before and now, after all this time, there was nothing left to see.

“We could take a few minutes,” Miller offered. “If you'd like—”

“No.”

* * *

The Doctor followed along behind his son, Ellie and the dog lagging a bit further behind. He knew they would catch up, and he was not worried about that. He was a bit concerned by his son's behavior, worried that Alec was trying too push too hard and too fast to have this be over—and it could have been, had they not sent Jenny off with the TARDIS. He did agree with the need to keep his granddaughter safe and far from this, but he was wondering if perhaps they should have found another way, one that did not strand them without the time ship.

Still, perhaps they would find more here than they knew.

“Alec, when you fought them,” the Doctor began, and his son stopped just in front of the ruined structure. Once that might have been a home, but it hadn't been in some time, even before Ailie died.

“What?”

“Well, I know the one followed you outside and you managed to get him with that rock, but the others... you fought with them inside, didn't you?”

Alec frowned. “Exactly what are you getting at?”

“We should expect to find traces of them inside, shouldn't we?” the Doctor asked. “That is the point of our exercise, isn't it?”

“Aye,” Alec answered. “You knew that before we came here. The idea was to use K-9 to gather any evidence we might find, not that I think there's much there now. It's been too long, and even if the basement was protected from the elements—and I don't think it is—it'll be contaminated.”

“Wait,” Ellie said as she rejoined them. “Wasn't that why we came here? To find some trace of this guy to use to figure out where he is now? If you didn't think there was anything here, why would you have called in a favor from Rose's company?”

Alec looked back at the ruins. “I don't know that there isn't anything. Or that there is. It was never processed as a crime scene, not like it should have been and—”

“What?”

“Ailie's father was the local constable,” Alec explained. “She was all he had, and her death killed him. He's buried right next to her. From what my mother told me, he folded as soon as he knew she was missing, and it was my mother's efforts that got a search going. He didn't come out of it after she died, lasted a bit longer, but he was basically gone as soon as she was. Someone else was sent up to cover the case—couple of them, ones I could tell could care less—and they were content to leave things as they were.”

“Oh, now, Alec,” the Doctor said. “I'm not sure that's entirely a fair statement.”

His son frowned. “You didn't see all the memories in my head and—”

“I visited you when you were in the coma, after you were shot saving Jack's team,” the Doctor said. “You seemed to have been... stuck in those memories. I saw... Almost everything. Why do you think I had to go back for you? I wanted to go in and kill them all myself. I wanted to stop Ailie from dying. Only knowing what would come if I did stopped me, and I still... I have to keep telling myself I had to do it as I did. I know that when you were interviewed, you asked them if they found all the bodies. You didn't specify that one got away.”

Ellie turned to him. “Did you really not tell them that one of them was still alive? Why the hell wouldn't you tell them?”


	14. Time for Explanation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy discusses why he did what he did, and then some distraction happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost regret having K-9 here. Just because something doesn't quite work with him around, but it'll be okay. It just means this takes a bit longer.

* * *

_Hardy fidgeted against the chair, trying to get comfortable, aware of his mother's eyes on him. She watched him almost constantly these days, and he hated it. He knew what it was. He'd almost died. She was afraid, so she hovered, just like she had any of those other times he'd been hurt or threatened by aliens._

_He still didn't understand how aliens could be real but Ailie was dead, and he'd just as soon forget all of them, even if his dog was a robot and seemed to be some kind of alien, too._

_“Are you able to talk to us, son?”_

_Hardy gave the detective who'd spoken a glare. “I'm not your son. And while I was hit on the head at least once, I'm not a bloody idiot.”_

_Both of the men across from him gave him disapproving looks. His mother sighed, and he saw that look again, the one that said he wasn't behaving like normal people did. He didn't care. He was not going to let them patronize him._

_“We need to discuss what happened that night,” Inspector Holmes began. “Can we do that now?”_

_Hardy folded his arms over his chest, ignoring the pain. “Are you actually going to listen to me this time? No? Then there's the door. Don't let it hit you in the arse.”_

_“There hasn't even been anything to listen to,” the other detective said. “All you've told us is what we already know.”_

_Hardy looked at his mother. “Make them go.”_

_She grimaced, turning to face them. “You're not making this any easier on any of you. Alec is not the most cooperative boy in the world, but you're being needlessly confrontational about this. Are you accusing him of something?”_

_“No.”_

_Hardy didn't think that was true. He looked over to see K-9 behind the chair the detectives were using, and while he should make an excuse and get the dog out of the room before anyone saw it, he had another idea, and K-9 would be the perfect proof._

_He faked a cough which soon became real enough, and his mother looked around for his usual glass of water which he'd left somewhere else he didn't remember at the moment. She hurried out to get him another one, and he leaned back to let the fit pass._

_When it did, he asked. “How many bodies?”_

_“We've been over this,” Holmes said. “Four. The girl's and three men.”_

_Hardy watched them, appraising each of them as he spoke. “And if I said there was a fourth man there that night?”_

_The detectives exchanged looks. “No. It doesn't fit.”_

_“Are you bloody insane? What about the vehicle? Did you ever find it? A van. No, I don't know the color. It was dark. Didn't see the plate. Ailie wanted it, but she was too drunk, and I was... That doesn't matter. There was someone else there.”_

_“Are you sure that's the story you want to give us?”_

_Hardy frowned. He was telling the truth. This wasn't any kind of story. “You said you wanted to know what happened that night.”_

_“Yes, but as far as we can see, the only other person there that night was you,” Holmes said. “So if that's what you want to insist on... perhaps we should consider charges against you. Was it always your intention to kill that girl?”_

_“What?” Hardy asked before he could stop himself. Ailie was the only one who gave a damn about him besides his mother. He wouldn't have hurt her. Ever. “No. I didn't—I didn't kill Ailie. If that's how you're going to be, get out. Get the hell out of my house.”_

* * *

“Bloody hell, Miller. Everything is a damned lecture with you,” Hardy muttered. Ellie stared at him, not sure how he could be standing there, admitting to holding back a very key piece of evidence. He hated when the people involved in their cases did that, and this killer could have been found years ago if he'd talked. How could he ignore that?

“I didn't say I was going to lecture you,” Ellie told him, though she would give him a good bollocking if he didn't have a damned good reason for holding that back. Maybe he thought he was smart enough to solve the case when no one else would, and it did seem like it would take him doing it now, but had he done that on purpose? How could he live with himself if it was, knowing that Sylvie and Gabriel died because he never let anyone look for that other man? “I do want a reason. A good reason. A damned good one.”

“The police telling me that if anyone else was involved in the killing, it was me?” Hardy asked, bitterness in his voice, and she gagged as soon as she heard it.

“You're joking. Please tell me they were not that stupid,” she said, and he just looked at her. “What about the fact that you almost died? You didn't do that to yourself. And the van. The one that they used to abduct you—he took it, didn't he? If he hadn't, it would have been there for them to find.”

“Not if I was involved, and if we were to walk up the road, you'd see how we're not as far from town as this wood suggests,” Hardy told her. “I was informed that I could have walked the distance with the others. That we all did, since Ailie trusted me and would have had no idea what she was in for when we got there.”

Ellie winced. “God, how could they think that? Don't they have any idea how much she meant to you? I can hear it in the way you talk about her, and your mother and everyone else would have told them the same thing.”

Hardy shook his head. “They had it all the way they wanted it. If those men killed Ailie and hurt me, then I... I dealt with them, and it was all wrapped up. Tidy, neat, and nothing they had to put any time into, and they did not want to be here, that's for bloody sure. No one does. I used to call the town the place that hell forgot.”

“Nice.”

The Doctor looked his son over. “Did you ever do anything about their incompetence and gross dereliction of duty?”

Hardy nodded. “It took a while, but I made sure that both their careers ended in disgrace. It wasn't hard. They weren't doing their bloody jobs, and it was easy to prove.”

“That's something, at least,” the Doctor said. “Though... I think going back in time and harassing them isn't going to break any timelines. Yes, we should. Not believing my son. As if they had any sort of right to doubt you. No. Accuse you? No. I want to do something to them myself. Soon as I get the TARDIS, I will.”

Ellie had to admit, she'd like to see them pay, since they'd let a killer go free to kill again. Sylvie hadn't deserved that, and it could have been prevented. “I wonder if anyone would make the case that their negligence led to Sylvie's death.”

“Maybe, but I think both of them are dead now,” Hardy admitted. “Lost track of them after a while, but I'd heard they both had bad drinking problems, and there's a natural progression there.”

Ellie nodded. She knew too many cops who ended up down that same road, even in a small town like Broadchurch that was mostly peaceful. “Still, I'm angry. I can't believe they weren't willing to listen to you. Even just the possibility of another killer should have made them stop and think about this, and they didn't.”

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed. “And something will be done about it. Oh, but I do hate when I can't fix this sort of thing. It seems so simple. Hop in the TARDIS, jump back to the past, save a couple lives, and it's all happy and ends well.”

Ellie looked at him. “Are Sylvie and Gabriel some kind of fixed point, too?”

“In that we're now a part of the timeline as it's progressing, yes,” the Doctor said. “Going back in time to alter the events would cause a bit of a disaster. It goes back to Alec's timeline crossing over itself and many others over the years. He's very timey wimey, and it's a difficult thing to do, touch any part of it without harming... well, the universe.”

“Fine,” Ellie said, though she still wasn't sure that she accepted all of that. “I suppose we'd better go down in there and see what we can find now.”

“Aye.”

“Are you sure you're up to this?” Ellie asked, and Hardy gave her a look. “Don't do that. You almost died here. Your best friend was murdered here. You can't pretend that doesn't affect you.”

His eyes went back to the ruined building. The silence stretched on, and she didn't think he was still with them, once again lost in the past.

* * *

_“Do you remember how we met?”_

_Hardy frowned as he looked over at Ailie, not sure why she was asking that. She had been quiet for most of the afternoon, and he was starting to wonder why she'd bothered walking home with him. He'd figured it was the usual—she wasn't fond of an empty house, and hers almost always was, since her father worked long hours as the only policeman in town._

_“Why would you think I'd forget that?”_

_She shrugged. “I just... maybe it doesn't seem important to you.”_

_He snorted. “People tend to remember when they meet good friends. And since you made such a spectacle of yourself, it wouldn't be easy to forget.”_

_She grimaced. “I wasn't that bad, was I?”_

_He thought about that for a moment. “That depends on when you mean. Technically, we first met when neither of us were old enough to remember it. And then we met again in school since there's only one of them about, but as for the first time we talked, that was—”_

_“Don't,” she said, and he almost smiled, knowing she'd finally remembered exactly how that conversation had gone. She'd been trying to be friendly and gone too far, which was very easy for someone like Ailie to do._

_“Did you know there is a house out there in the woods? Someone must have abandoned it years ago, and it's almost completely destroyed, but there's still a basement, and it's creepy, but we could go see it sometime,” he said, and she covered her face with a groan._

_“Did I say that? All of that?”_

_“Something vaguely like it,” he told her. He didn't remember all of the words, but he did remember the basics. She'd wanted to show him that place as a bit of kindness—it wasn't a spot most of the kids knew about, and since they tended to try and bully him, maybe it was a good idea. Or something. He wasn't sure what all her reasons had been, though she'd been accused of wanting to play “house” with him a minute later and that had made her get red and run away from him._

_They hadn't really talked again until after he'd gotten in real trouble for cannibalizing the parts for his supercomputer, and that time had been far more innocuous, which was interesting seeing as they'd been almost inseparable since that day._

_“I was thinking about the other time,” she admitted. “Not the embarrassing one where I was all stupid, but about when we actually became friends.”_

_“Why does that matter?”_

_She frowned. “Are you saying it doesn't matter that we're friends?”_

_He sighed. “No. That wasn't what I meant, but why is this even on your mind? We are friends. It doesn't need discussing.”_

_She shook her head. “You really don't remember, do you?”_

_“I thought I just proved that I did.”_

_“No, you don't, because it's been four years now. To the day.”_

_He thought about it, and yes, she was right about that. He hadn't paid much attention to the date, but it seemed to fit with the general time of year. “So?”_

_She threw a pillow at him. “We should do something. Celebrate.”_

_He grimaced. “No.”_

_“Please?”_

_He refused to give into that word and her look. He was not that weak. “We could go out to the house in the woods. Seems like a great place for a party.”_

_“Oh, you,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “We're going to do something a lot better than that. I just need a bit of time to think of what it should be.”_

_He grunted. “Do your homework.”_

* * *

“I didn't connect it,” Alec whispered, shaking his head. He seemed pained, but then the Doctor wasn't surprised. Any memory brought up by this place would be painful. “Ailie knew about this place. She mentioned it to me before, but even when we were here, when she was dying, I didn't realize this was the place she meant.”

Ellie frowned. “She came here often?”

“No.” Alec turned away from the ruin. “At least... not that I knew. I think she was aware of it because of her father. He probably had to come by this place every so often to chase off squatters or rodents, and he would have warned her off of it. She did say it was creepy, but whether that was from a story her father told her or an actual visit, I don't know. I never asked. We never came here before that night. It wasn't... It didn't seem to matter.”

“And it likely doesn't matter at all,” Ellie told him. She gave the ruin another look. “I'm sure your father has something in his pockets or the dog can light the place up, but maybe we should wait until morning anyway. The light's going, and we don't know what kind of state it'll be in after all this time.”

“I can scan the structure for stability,” K-9 said. “This will not take long.”

“I don't think that's actually what she's worried about,” the Doctor told him. “I think she is trying to find an excuse to give Alec some time before we enter that basement. I don't know if that is necessary or even something Alec wants, but it is her aim.”

“I'm not afraid of it,” Alec said with a bit of a frown. “It's not... I can do it.”

“Yes, but you shouldn't have to force yourself to do it,” Ellie told him. “We don't need this that badly. I know it seems like it because that killer has been free for way too long, and it just gets worse when I think about what those men did in not looking for him. At all. For accusing you of this—”

“Miller, if it was you, you'd suspect me.”

She frowned. “No. Not after I heard the facts. You'd suspect you, not me. That's not who I am. Or what I do. You found that irritating before, but it's true. I would have believed you. I do believe you. I don't doubt for a second it happened as you said. And it's not because your father can confirm what he saw in your memories or even that I know you. I give people the benefit of the doubt.”

He nodded, but he started moving, circling the remnants of the wall. The Doctor watched him, not wanting to see his son hurt any more than he had been already. Alec did not need to fall into the basement and add a physical wound to the many emotional ones he had.

“The structure seems stable,” K-9 reported. “No signs of collapse.”

“Any signs of life?” Ellie asked, and Alec turned back to look at her. She shrugged. “I don't have any interest in seeing the kind of wildlife that could have chosen to make this their home.”

Alec grimaced, but he should have known that was a possibility. “No. I sealed it when I was here last time.”

“You did?”

“Ailie died here, and while she might have been kind enough to let anyone who needed a home take over this place, I wasn't,” Alec admitted. He held out his hand. “Screwdriver?”

“I thought I gave you one,” the Doctor said, but he didn't really mind sharing his with his son. Somehow, that felt right. “Here.”

Alec took it, pointing it at the door. The Doctor thought about suggesting they use K-9 instead, but it unsealed soon enough, and his son gave him back his screwdriver.

“Well,” the Doctor said, trying to make this a bit less awkward. “I suppose now is both a very fitting and rather horrible time to say _allons-y,_ isn't it?”


	15. Time for Distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio goes into the basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been trying to lead up to this point for a while. I just wasn't sure how to get here.
> 
> And I remain hopelessly socially inept, but that's a different matter.

* * *

The Doctor went first, not letting anyone else risk themselves when he still had regenerations left, though he wasn't sure his son was up to going down in the lead anyway. Neither of them wanted that for Ellie, and so she was at the back, just in front of K-9. This seemed a decent procession, and they made their way down without incident.

He turned to the left at the end of the stairs, a bit put off by the smell. Long years shut up had made the mustiness of this basement even worse than usual. He could cope with it, but it was rather irritating to his enhanced Time Lord senses.

He looked around the room, feeling a bit unsettled, knowing that sense had to be tripled for his son. Alec had almost died here. He'd seen Ailie die in this room. This place would haunt him more than any other—well, perhaps not. That river had done its fair share of damage, too.

“What are we looking for?” Ellie asked. Then she sighed. “I mean... what should we be seeing? Anything?”

Alec swallowed, eyes sweeping the room as he struggled to keep his composure. The Doctor wouldn't doubt he wanted to run back out of the room, but he stayed, troubled as he was. He stopped in the middle of the room. “Here.”

The Doctor looked over the support beam, wincing. “This is where they had you, isn't it?”

Alec nodded, eyes still fixed upon the beam. “Woke up tied here.”

Ellie flinched. She forced herself to be the policewoman she was and spoke. “Where were the others?”

Alec lifted a hand, pointing to the other wall. “They had Ailie... over there. They were between us... most of them around her. Soon as they knew I was awake, two of them came over to me. The Londoner. And the leader.”

“So they left her alone to attack you as soon as you were awake?” Ellie asked, her expression at war with her question. She didn't want to ask it, that was clear in her face, and the Doctor knew there was no good way to ask something like that.

Alec shook his head. “No. They said I was... I was supposed to wait my turn, and Ailie tried to move, so she got their attention again.”

Ellie forced herself to nod. “So... they didn't do anything to you until she was dead?”

Alec closed his eyes. “Depends on your definition of doing something, Miller.”

“I know they were psychologically torturing you,” she said, touching his arm. “Making you watch, keeping you tied up and helpless, unable to stop them, unable to get away or help her, and I'm sorry. I don't want to force you to relive this, but we are going to need everything you can tell us, especially since no one listened before.”

He went back to the beam, and K-9 moved closer to where Ailie had been held. “I tried... tried to get them to come after me instead. Told them her father was a cop. They didn't care. It made that bastard laugh. He wasn't scared. He wanted to do it even more, I think.”

“Damn,” Ellie whispered.

The Doctor crossed to his son's side. “You know you don't have to tell us. If it would help, if it spared you anything, you could just... let me see in your mind, and you wouldn't have to tell us all about it.”

Alec sighed. “That's not an improvement.”

“I know you still see it, but you'd see it anyway, and you wouldn't have to try and talk about it,” the Doctor said, looking back to where they'd killed the girl. “I want to do something, anything, to take away this pain. I can't—what is the bloody point of being a Time Lord if I can't change this?”

Alec looked at him. “You're not a god. Even you need limits.”

“Ah, yes, the rule of absolute power. Corrupts absolutely,” the Doctor said, wincing as he remembered his own pain, the war and what his people had done in it. The lives they'd lost, sacrificed, thinking them unimportant. “I know that to be true, but I don't like having my hands tied now, here, of all times and places. You were still a child—grown well beyond your years in some respects, but still believed human and by human convention a child—and this should not have happened to either of you. And then I say that and remember it's a fixed point. I don't understand why it's a fixed point, but it is.”

Alec shook his head. “Ailie... she probably would understand. Of all people, she would, which is wrong, but she was one of those people... she didn't think about herself so much as everyone else. Her father, a lot, me, even, and she just... if she thought her death would mean something, she'd tell you not to mess with time.”

“That doesn't mean you want it that way,” Ellie said. “If she's that good of a person, then you'd say her life was worth more, that she should be here, not you.”

“Aye. It never felt right. Her dying when I lived. I know... I know it's only because I am half-alien, because my father went back in time to save me, but it should have been me.”

“I have to disagree, not just as your father but also as a Time Lord who has some idea what having you pulled from the time stream would do to the universe. Trust me, it's not something you want to see. It is... not good.”

His son looked at him. “That doesn't make this any easier.”

* * *

_Hardy heard Ailie scream his name, and he yanked on the ropes again, trying to get himself free. He had to get to her. He had to stop them. They were hurting her, and she needed him, but he couldn't move. He couldn't even get these things to wiggle a bit. If he'd had anything in his hands, he might have tried to cut them, but the beam he was tied to was too smooth, not doing any damage to the ropes as he moved._

_He was stuck._

_“At it again, are you?” the Londoner asked, and Hardy glared at him. “We really did find a feisty one this time.”_

_“Let her go.”_

_“Didn't you hear the boss? Your turn will come.”_

_Hardy twisted, trying to kick him. “Why not now? You want to hurt someone, why not me?”_

_That got laughter, and not just from the Londoner. He took hold of Hardy's hair again, and yanked it back hard, almost pulling it out. Then he slammed Hardy's head into the pole, and everything spun again, making him choke on something coming up his throat._

_“Not too hard now,” the leader called. “He's supposed to be watching.”_

_“You think you... win by having me... watch,” Hardy said, struggling with the words as he tried to keep himself conscious. “What... victory... is that? Can't even see with you... in the way.”_

_“Alec,” Ailie said, and he winced, knowing that sounded wrong, but he had to bait them. He didn't see any other way to get them away from her, and if he could spare her any of this, he would. He had to, but he couldn't unless maybe he managed to make them as mad as he seemed to make everyone else._

_“It's touching how you keep calling for him even now, when he's proved he can't protect you,” the leader said, patting her cheek. He wiped away some of the blood and smiled at her, making her turn away from him._

_“I told you before... do what you want... to me. Just... let her go.”_

_“And I told you that you hadn't given me a convincing reason to do that," the leader said, smiling as he did. "I can do as I please to you as soon as I'm done here, so why would I want to give up on my toy early?”_

_Hardy understood. They were going to kill her before they started on him, but he couldn't let that happen. He didn't know how to stop them, but he had to do something. Anything.  
“I'm not... I'm not normal.”_

_The Londoner leaned into his face. “You look pretty normal from here.”_

_“Looks... aren't everything... just... look at your face,” Hardy said, and the man backhanded him, hard. He grit his teeth, riding out the pain and refusing to let himself lose consciousness again. He had to do something to save Ailie. “Built... supercomputer... at twelve. Have... robot... dog. Aliens buried in... my backyard.”_

_“Oh, now that's funny,” the leader said, turning away from Ailie. He crossed over to Hardy's side and grabbed hold of him. “Tell me, do you think I'm amused by that? At all?”_

_“You're too stupid to have a sense of humor,” Hardy countered, getting an angry glare for that. “Go ahead. Test me.”_

_The leader studied him. “Very well. Let's play your game for a minute. I've got hours to play mine, so I don't mind. If you are such a genius, you can prove it. You should be able to do some simple math in your head. Fifty-nine times thirty-five?”_

_“Two thousand sixty-five,” Hardy answered without hesitation. “Do you need a calculator to check that? Maybe you'd better.”_

_“Forty-seven times three hundred sixty-nine?”_

_“Seventeen thousand three hundred forty-three,” Hardy told him, though his head was starting to pound so much he wasn't sure of that answer. He didn't care._

_“Oh, you are special, aren't you?” the leader cooed at him, cupping his cheek and spreading Ailie's blood on it. “I'm glad we found you. That will make this very satisfying.”_

_“Let Ailie go.”_

_“Oh, no, I didn't say I would do that.” The leader grinned at him. “Though I do like knowing I'm dealing with someone of your brilliance. A shame you haven't more to go with it. Strength would help you... as would wisdom.”_

_“You plan to kill us,” Hardy said, hearing a bit of a whimper from Ailie. “I know that.”_

_“Then you should also know there's no way for you to stop me.”_

* * *

“Hardy?” Ellie asked, reaching for him. She almost stopped herself, not sure if trying to touch him was best, or if she'd make it worse. He was lost in the past, had been for a bit now, remembering, and it was hard to watch, all of that naked pain on his face.

He'd cared about Ailie. Maybe he hadn't been in love with her, but her death still scared him deeply, and now everyone would see that, the wounds he hid for so long. He'd kept this inside ever since it happened, and now he was forced to face it, all of it, because that man had killed again.

She had to figure Hardy would have been looking for cases that matched Ailie's death as soon as he became a policeman, so it was surprising that Sylvie's case would have slipped past him, but then... Alan Rayes had basically told them that the local force considered that case closed, and it might never have shown itself as similar because of that. She didn't know. She hoped that was all it was. Hardy didn't need more guilt. This was eating at him enough as it was. He didn't need to take on the burden of missing the case—he must have looked for it.

She wasn't going to push that button. She wouldn't. That would set him over the edge, and they couldn't do it. They just had to find this killer, do what they could to set things right again.

“Hardy,” she repeated, this time going ahead with touching him. “Hardy, I think we should go. K-9 has his samples, and all we're doing here is torturing you.”

He jerked. “What? Miller, the hell are you—Bloody hell.”

“You did get a little lost on us there,” the Doctor told him. “She brought you back from that, though. You're here again. She may be right about it being time to go, though. I rather think it might be. I'm not sure much else can be gained here.”

“I...” Hardy looked around him, apparently needing more time to shake off the past. “Aye. Nothing here. Not that there would be, but... there isn't. Not here.”

Ellie studied him. “Did you remember anything?”

He shook his head. “Not anything important. Just... things I never truly forgot. I... I don't even know why it distracted me just now. I've done nothing of use here, but if K-9 has his samples, we can go. At best, we might have some of this man's DNA, though it's unlikely that it's usable now, contaminated as it must be.”

“We'll worry about that later,” the Doctor told him. “Let's get out of this damp place and find something to eat. You do have a place nearby where we can achieve such a thing, don't you?”

“Of course there's somewhere for that,” Hardy grumbled, sounding rather annoyed. She supposed that was to be expected after what he must have been reliving just now, but he seemed like he wanted to fight with his father now, and that was no good.

“Good. Then let's be off. We'll eat, think, perhaps regroup, and make plans for tomorrow. I assume we are staying for the night, aren't we? We could go back, but I don't know that there's any need to rush that. We're waiting on tests anyhow.”

Ellie didn't think that Hardy wanted to stay at all, but she wasn't sure she wanted to do another long flight in the helicopter. They could fly back in a proper plane this time, she would much prefer that, and they should sedate the Doctor for that. Or the drive to the airport, at least. She didn't know, but one thing she was sure of was that he was a terrible pain to travel with without his TARDIS.

She almost wished the others would get back early. They could use the TARDIS for the tests and the search, and maybe they would find this killer sooner. That would be good for everyone.

“I think you should go first, Alec,” the Doctor said. “We won't be but a moment behind you, but I think you of all of us need air the most.”

Hardy nodded, still distracted, and Ellie let him go past her, ready to be out of this basement. The place was uncomfortable enough, worse so because of what had happened here. She didn't want to think about that poor girl dying here or how Hardy had almost done the same.

She shook her head, following him up the stairs, aware of the Doctor and K-9 behind her.

“Master, sensors detect—”

A blinding white flash cut off the robot's words and then everything went dark.


	16. Time for Repetition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in the basement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a bit pleased by the quick turnaround on this one. I wasn't sure when I'd get a chance to write again, as my work schedule is... horrible in the next few days, so I squeezed this in, but I can't promise more than it. Still, I am finally at the part I knew was coming, and that is something, I suppose.

* * *

_He thought maybe he had passed out again. He wasn't sure. Everything was fuzzy after he was pulled from the pole, more so after the cutting began. He knew it happened. He'd felt it, and he could still feel it now, but he couldn't tell the wounds apart. Not now._

_Hardy's body was a mess of pain. He could feel every little cut, and they stung as the cool air hit them. He reached for the scraps of his shirt, trying to cover himself. He knew it was stupid, that the cloth might even be worse than the air, but he didn't like feeling exposed. He wanted to cover up, to be concealed, wanted to feel safe again._

_Even when his home had been invaded by aliens, when his school was and those sadistic telepathic ones took people hostage, he hadn't felt robbed of that sense, but here and now, he did. He'd had his mind violated, and it wasn't as hard to cope with as this._

_He'd been cut. He'd been carved. And he wanted to pretend that hadn't happened._

_“Don't you dare,” the leader said, reaching over to pull Hardy's hand away from his shirt, opening it back up to reveal all the marks. “I want to see my work.”_

_Hardy had thought that man was gone. He didn't know why he'd thought that when the man was clearly still here. He hadn't left. They were all here. Every one of his tormentors. Some were further away than the others, but they were all still in the room._

_Four against one. Even uninjured, he wouldn't have had much of a chance against them, but he could barely move now._

_“You're sick.”_

_“Hmm. You're beautiful. Look at this,” the leader said with a smile, tracing along a cut. “Perfect. Such a wonderful canvas, and I've barely even started.”_

_Hardy jerked, sending a new wave of pain through his body. “Get away from me.”_

_He tried to pull away, but the Londoner was quick to grab hold of him and force him to stay in place as the leader continued his scrutiny, touching every mark he'd made._

_“Threatening me is pointless. Don't you see that? I have all the power here.”_

_That wasn't true. Hardy knew it wasn't. He might give orders, but those other men still had to choose to obey him. They could go against him. They hadn't, not so far, but that didn't mean they never would. “You have... three stooges.”_

_That got laughter._

_“You are quite amusing. I like that about you. Entertainment while I work,” the leader said, lifting up his knife. “And not the typical kind. Mostly I get screamers. I do enjoy the screams, but you... you're different. You refuse to cry out. So strong. And so bitter a tongue. She was sweet. You're something else entirely. I want more of you. A_ lot _more.”_

_Hardy shuddered, twisting in the Londoner's hold as he tried to escape the blade. He heard his pants ripping, and one of the others grabbed hold of his legs as he struggled to avoid the knife._

_He heard laughter as the blade cut deep into his skin. He bit his lip hard and refused to scream, almost hoping he'd die faster than Ailie had. He didn't want to live through this. He didn't want to survive. He just wanted the pain to stop._

* * *

Hardy lifted his head, trying to make sense of where he was. He started to move and felt himself jerked to a stop, his hands caught above his head. He swallowed, looking up and shaking his head in disbelief. No. This was not happening. Not again.

He could not be here again.

Not in this basement. Not the hellhole where he'd nearly died. Not where Ailie had died, where he'd lost everything.

He knew he had rebuilt, that he'd done his best to overcome this place, but it still had a hold on him, so long after the fact. He couldn't speak of it to Tess, and he still dreamed that he'd lose Daisy to something like this, just like Wallace had lost Ailie.

This had to be another one of his nightmares. That was what it was. He'd passed out or something after the flashback, getting sick on the stairs. Maybe he'd fallen. That would explain it all, wouldn't it?

“You're awake.”

Hardy tried not to gag. He knew that voice. He turned, seeing a face he'd never forgotten, one that he saw in almost every nightmare. Pippa and the river could shut him out, but only on a rare occasion. She'd had sway when he was working on the Latimer case—damned water—and when he'd reopened the Sandbrook case with Miller's help, but before her and still after her was that man. That face.

That sick smile.

“You're not dead.”

“Oh, I'm sure you wish I was,” the other man said, smiling at Hardy. “I was rather surprised to hear of your survival, but then again... you did impress me with your stamina. Or was that yours? I admit, I'm a bit confused. I didn't think you had a brother. Certainly not a twin.”

Hardy looked to his left and saw his father tied to the other beam. The Time Lord was bleeding, and Hardy wouldn't have been surprised if it had taken more than one stun grenade to subdue him. He would have hoped his father had gotten away, superior alien and all that, but he looked in worse shape than Hardy felt.

And he felt damned miserable.

“Let him go,” Hardy said, facing the killer again. “This is between you and me. No one else.”

The other man chuckled. “That is such a cliché thing to say.”

Hardy snorted. “Am I supposed to be impressed by you knowing that word? You're still pathetic.”

“Am I?” the other man countered, still smiling in such a smug way that Hardy wanted to pound his face in, but he couldn't get his hands to move more than a millimeter from the pole. “You're the one tied up, after all. I caught you. I caught him. And I caught her.”

Hardy tried not to react to the words or the sight of Miller, unconscious and splayed out on the floor like Ailie had been. Damn, he should have shoved Miller in the TARDIS, forced her to go where it was safe. His only consolation was that the bastard couldn't get to Daisy. His daughter was safe. She was on another planet. This bastard wouldn't win, even if he killed them all here.

“Don't flatter yourself. Miller's a pain in the arse. The true trick is getting rid of her.”

“Oh, I have plans for that,” the killer said, dismissing Hardy's words with a hand and that same smile. It grated on Hardy's nerves, and he hated being so damned helpless. “And you'll get to see them come to fruition. Again.”

Hardy glared at him. “You think I'll just sit here while you hurt her?”

“You will. You have no choice, just like before. Will this one scream for you, do you think? I can still hear the other one, her pleas... I almost miss her.”

Bastard. He didn't miss Ailie. He didn't know her, didn't understand how special the person he'd killed truly was, and even if he did, he didn't care. She didn't matter to him. She was just a body, one he'd carved up and tortured, and he was proud of that, but he didn't even know her name. He didn't care. He just wanted someone to hurt.

“You're sick.”

The other man laughed. “You would say that. Genius is so unappreciated in its time.”

“You're not a genius. You're a monster.”

“Oh, I had almost forgotten you thought you were a genius. You did some calculations. Decent show. Not overly impressive, though.”

Calculations were a cheap trick, and Hardy knew it, same as he did. Still, it had bought him a minute's distraction, and he'd used it as much as he could back then. This time was different. He wasn't alone—Ailie had never stood a chance, small and untrained as she was, but Miller wasn't the same. She was a cop, and he'd seen her beat her husband when she found out what he'd done to Danny Latimer. If she wasn't tied, and he didn't think she was, she would give this bastard hell. 

And there was something else, something he'd overlooked before, but he shouldn't have. They might still have other hope, too. “Where's K-9?”

“The dog? I shot it. Put it out of its misery.”

“You didn't see the need to torture it, too?” Hardy snorted. “That's not like you.”

“Something wrong with that dog.”

Hardy almost laughed. “It's a bloody robot.”

“You're going to claim that again? And the aliens in the backyard, too?”

“They've decomposed by now, but they're there, in a sense,” Hardy answered. He almost laughed then. “Hell, they're here.”

“You don't amuse me. I think it's time we wake your friend.  I want to play with her.”

* * *

Ellie heard voices, and she almost yelled at the boys to keep it down before she realized where she was. Her head was pounding, and everything looked funny when she first tried to open her eyes, so she shut them again. The musty smell hit her full force, and she gagged. The basement. They were back in the basement.

No. Hardy wouldn't have gone back there. The Doctor wouldn't have let him. She wouldn't have let him. They were putting that place behind them, regrouping for the night, finding a different way of hunting this bastard. They had the samples, and they'd left.

Only they hadn't, had they? She remembered the light now, that flash and the pain in her head went along with it. Whatever that was, it had knocked her on her ass and worse, leaving her to wake up here and be unable to move.

Not unless she wanted her head to explode or to puke on everything in creation.

She hoped the nausea passed soon. Her vision did seem to be improving, a little, though her ears were ringing a bit, and that was probably part of the nausea, too. Her balance was off, and she didn't feel like she could even sit up right now.

“I do get so bored waiting for people to come around,” an unfamiliar voice said. She tried to place it and couldn't. That wasn't the Doctor, wasn't any of his other faces or regenerations—though she didn't know all of them. Still, it didn't sound like him. It sounded... evil, and that was not just because her ears were ringing. “It's very tiresome.”

“You're tiresome,” Hardy grumbled, twisting in the rope binding him to the pillar. “Acting like a bloody—”

“Ah, now,” the other man said, waving a finger in Hardy's face like he was chastising a child. Hardy backed away from him, even though there was nowhere for him to go against the beam. “Aren't we past name calling? We're too intimately acquainted for that.”

Hardy glared back at him. “You didn't give a name.”

“Is that all it takes, Alec?” the other man asked, patting his cheek. Hardy looked like he wanted to puke, and he tried to move away from the man's touch. “I suppose I've never forgotten yours. Hard to with the way she screamed it. She really thought you were going to save her.”

“Bastard,” Ellie muttered as she forced herself to sit up despite her stomach's protests. He was twisted, using that against Hardy. He hadn't been able to save her, but he'd been tied up and there were four of them. He couldn't have done anything, not that she thought he believed that. 

She heard Hardy swear as the man turned toward her. She swallowed, cursing herself this time as he advanced on her.

“Now we can have some real fun, can't we, Alec?” the man asked, his eyes not leaving Ellie as he held up a knife. “Did you count them? The screams? I wonder if this one will give more. That one didn't last long at all. Not like you. Oh, you held out masterfully. Shame about your taste in women, though. They're too fragile.”

Ellie snorted, almost wishing he was close enough to kick. “I'll show you fragile, you bastard. I'll have you know I broke a man's ribs before.”

“I'm terrified,” the killer said, smiling at her in a way that made her sick. She wasn't sure if he was just looking forward to cutting her, and she didn't want to find out. She should run, but her head was spinning again. She didn't think she was going anywhere.

“Leave her alone,” Hardy said. “You know this wasn't ever about her. She wasn't the one you considered your masterwork, was she? You were disappointed in Ailie. Not in me, remember?”

Oh, hell. Hardy was trying to bait him away from her. She needed a few minutes to regroup, and she wanted to believe she could fight this man if she had to, but if he turned on Hardy, what was he going to do? He was tied to a damned post.

“Only it's not true, is it?” the Doctor asked, and Ellie frowned. He didn't sound like himself, but that first one was Hardy. He had the beard and the right suit. They hadn't pulled a switch on her, but he might be trying to do it to the man with the knife. “He doesn't have the scars. Look at him. Go on, take a good look.”

“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”

“I am only telling the truth,” the Doctor said, continuing on in a near perfect copy of Hardy's accent, and her head started hurting again, sending her images of a house and Daisy in historical dress that made no sense. Ellie must have a concussion, one bad enough to make her hallucinate. “He doesn't have the scars you want.”

“And I suppose you want me to believe you do?”

“Aye, I do,” the Doctor said, and Ellie shook her head. He was insane, trying to pass himself off as his son and get that bastard to attack him. Still, this could work. The killer seemed torn, unable to decide which one of them was the one he'd hurt before, and she knew she wouldn't get much other chance at this. She had to act fast.

She swallowed, forcing the nausea down as she used the wall to help her up to a crouch. She could try and disarm him. That might work. She'd like to kick him the way she had Joe, but she didn't think she'd stay on her feet long enough for that. Damn it. She had to do something.

“He's lying,” Hardy said. “He's not even bloody Scottish.”

“Neither are you,” the Doctor countered, almost smiling as he said it. “Part Time Lord, part human, part time vortex... None of that is Scottish.”

The killer turned toward the Doctor. “I am not in the mood for jokes. Only one of you was there that night, and I will find out which of you it was. I left plenty of marks. And I'll make them all again.”

“Like hell you will,” Ellie said, knowing that ready or not, she had to make her move.

Only he was expecting that, and she felt the sting of his knife as soon as she got close.


End file.
